


The Neglected House and its Champions

by DelicatelyShadyGalaxy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Oliver Wood, Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Eventual Romance, Eventual tweaking of Cursed Child, F/M, Fluff, Growing Up, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Rivals to Lovers, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 142
Words: 158,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27561586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelicatelyShadyGalaxy/pseuds/DelicatelyShadyGalaxy
Summary: Two Hufflepuffs navigate Hogwarts and their own lives while trying to keep Harry alive without being noticed.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Pre-Hogwarts Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I posted this on FF.net and I got reasonably good vibes back. There will always be someone who doesn't like it, but that's ok because there's always someone who will. Besides, it's mine and I like it. This started out with an idea from a friend of mine, Random Muggle on FF.net, and I kind of ran with it. I hope she likes the way it ended up, though she probably would have done it differently. Anyway, I don't change much, my two OC's are really more background influences that I am putting the focus on. I'm new to this system so I may update the tags as I go along. Basically this story is just supposed to be fun.
> 
> There are three main sections, life Before Hogwarts, the seven years there and their time After Hogwarts. It's really long.

Late September 1987  
-  
  
Most would say that it all began that day in the room of requirement, with the DA. Others will argue that it started when the girls received their Hogwarts letters. However, the beginning was even before the day they were accepted. The beginning was so quiet most didn’t even notice that the story had begun. The story began on a sunny autumn day, with two little girls and a swing.

Leilani was sitting on a swing, lonely, but enjoying the quiet, when she met Jo. Her content loneliness wasn’t going to last long.

“Want a push?”

Leilani turned her head to see a tall girl with short, wild hair grinning at her. She gave a tentative nod, and the girl gave a gleeful shout. The girl grabbed the swing and began to twist it, winding it up. Before Leilani knew what had happened, the girl had hauled back and given the swing a mighty shove, and the world became a blur.

When the world stopped spinning and the rollercoaster came to a stop, the grinning girl was still there. Leilani hopped off the swing as fast as she could and opened her mouth to speak, only to realize she'd been screaming so fervently she'd gone hoarse. The girl wasn’t fazed by her speechlessness. She sat easily on the tall swing and said,“My turn!”

It was the beginning of a friendship that would rock the world.

It wasn’t until that night when Leilani told her parents about her day that she realized she never got the girl’s name.


	2. Pre-Hogwarts Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day at the beach

Early July, 1987

-

Today would be a good day. Of course, to Jo, everyday spent at the beach is sure to be a good one. As she scanned the beach she saw a boy building a fort with small rocks and sand. Jo suddenly knew what to do with this good day. But first, “Leili! C’mon! I’ve got an idea!”  
  
Jo’s new friend, Leilani, trotted over with a curious look on her face, Jo just motioned for her to follow.

“Hey! You want help?” Jo asked the boy, who was her senior by about 4 years, but still smaller than her.

He looked the two of them up and down and then said, “Sure, I need some bigger rocks though.”

Jo grinned and looked over at Leilani, who just looked back. “I think we can handle that.”

And so the girls wandered off in search of larger rocks. Which they found in the water.

Submerged. 

“Gha!” _Splash!  
_

And stuck.

Jo came up, shaking her head like a dog and spitting out seawater. Leilani was trying hard not to laugh as Jo glared at the offending rock.

“Maybe we should try to dig under it?” Leilani offered.

Jo dropped her glare in favor of nodding to Leilani, saying, “You have smaller fingers, so, you dig, I’ll pull.”

With much scrabbling and digging, heaving and huffing, the girls managed to get the rock to shore. However, Jo quickly realized that without water, the rock was too heavy for her to lift alone. That annoyed her, until she really looked at it and realized it was as big as her torso and weighed about 80 pounds. Then it made sense.

So Jo and Leilani got on either side of the rock and heaved with all their strength. They managed to get it about six inches off the ground and crab-walked over to the boy’s fortress. They dropped their loot with a solid thump. 

“Woah!” The boy and his friends all gathered around; amazed. 

The boy’s mother came over and asked incredulously, “You girls moved that by _yourselves_?”

"Yeah...?" Leilani asked, not sure why it was so flabbergasting. Slowly, the girls came to understand that they had accomplished something so simple, and yet something that no one thought they could.

Teamwork, they realized, could get them farther than anyone had ever dreamed.

It was a good day.


	3. Pre-Hogwarts Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What would you say if I told you that I’m a witch?”
> 
> “Tell me everything!”

August 1987

-

Jo had arrived at Leilani’s house for the first time about an hour ago, she’d been given a tour and had met Leili’s dog, Annie, a fluffy West Highland terrier who had taken quite a liking to Jo.

“What would you say if I told you that I’m a witch?” Leili asked warily, after closing her bedroom door.

“As in, abracadabra and alakazam?”

“Close enough.”

“Tell me _everything_!” Jo demanded excitedly.

Leili grinned and began to tell her everything she knew, beginning with animals. “First off, dragons are real, they’re kind of rare and because they’re dragons they have really tough skin so when a dragon dies—and I’m told that a dragon is like an organ donor, various parts are used for various things and the rest is buried or cremated or something—anyway when a dragon dies they use the skin for protective clothing, blood for potion ingredients, heart strings for wand cores and everything else for various things. 

“Unicorns and centaurs and werewolves are real, I dunno about vampires or fairies though. Magic wands are real! And there are potions and spells and it’s all really cool. And! We can travel by fireplace! If two fireplaces are hooked up to the Floo network then we can grab a handful of this glittery silver powder, toss it on the fire, step inside—the powder makes the fire bright green and totally harmless—say where you want to go and woosh! There you go! It’s totally awesome, but if you mispronounce it you get spat out in the wrong place. Floo powder is smart, if it can’t understand where you want to go, it’ll guess, so, mispronounce Diagon alley and you’ll be spit out in Knockturn alley, a place, I’m told, no sane person ever wants to be.”

“Hey, Leili? What kind of tree is in your front yard?” Jo asked suddenly. There was something odd about it.

“It’s a, um, watermelon red Mauling Myrtle,” Leili said, watching Jo carefully for her reaction, she was giving her a lot of information and so far, she wasn’t running screaming from the room, but a magical tree _could_ just be the last straw. The Mauling Myrtle resembled the Crepe Myrtles of the muggle world, with one dangerous difference. If the tree didn’t like you, or felt you were a danger to what it guarded, you were promptly mauled.

“I’m naming her Molly. Can we put a swing on her?” Jo grinned.


	4. Pre-Hogwarts Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jo gets her Hogwarts Letter

July 2nd, 1988

-

10-year old Jo woke that morning to the sound of an owl outside her bedroom window. She heard it and thought she must be dreaming because there were no owls at 9 in the morning, not in Brighton, England. So she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but the owl was persistent; it kept making noise until it got her attention. Jo finally gave up on going back to sleep, opting instead to look out her window for the stubborn bird she didn’t think was really there. But lo and behold there _was_ an owl there, a barn owl if she wasn’t very much mistaken. 

This owl was sitting on the back of the porch swing outside her window and in its beak was what looked like a letter and it was addressed to her. All caution flew out the window as she quietly ran to the front door. She unlocked the door and closed it behind her as she stepped out onto the brick porch in her bare feet before moving to the swing where the owl had turned to look at her. She approached carefully and slowly, wanting not to scare it away. She managed to sit right beside the surprisingly large bird before it dropped the letter in her lap. She expected it to fly away, but it didn’t, it just sat there and looked at her. Very slowly she inched her hand up to stroke the white feathers that ruffled slightly in the mild breeze that blew through every now and again. 

“Well, aren’t you pretty? And so well behaved, you can’t possibly be wild,” she said as she stroked the downy feathers on its chest and back. She gave the bird one more stroke before moving to open her letter. The writing on the front was in green ink and very pretty handwriting and on the back was a purple wax seal with a coat of arms and a banner reading ‘Hogwarts’ and below it another banner saying something in Latin. 

Briefly she wondered if this was something Leilani had cooked up as an early birthday present; her house was full of strange things and Jo’s birthday was only 3 months away, but then again, there was no way she could have found a live owl to deliver this letter. She might have put a toy owl on top of the letter and left it by the front door but a real one? Not very likely. She pondered this oddity as she carefully popped the wax seal and drew out the heavy parchment papers inside. 

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Miss Montgomery,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress

Jo gaped at the letter, school of witchcraft and wizardry? She had to call Leili, had to make sure this wasn’t from her, usually if Leili were to do something this elaborate there would be something in it that served as a note letting Jo know it was from her, but the only thing on the second page was a list of supplies: Three sets of plain work robes (black), One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear, One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar), One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings), a very long list of books, along with 1 wand, 1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2), 1 set glass or crystal phials, 1 telescope, 1 set brass scales, and a note saying students may also bring, if they desire, an owl, a cat, OR a toad.

There was no hand-drawn smiley face, or Leili’s signature rose hiding in a corner, nor was there an early birthday card hiding in the envelope. Jo turned to the owl beside her and said, “Stay. I’ll be back,” she ran into the house, grabbed the phone and started dialing Leili’s number. 

She called Leilani twice before she picked up, “Hello?”

“Did you send me a letter? By owl?” It was a habit of Jo’s to not answer the phone with a greeting, choosing instead to get right to the point.

“A letter? No, I may have emailed you, but I haven’t _mailed_ you anything and not by owl, why?”

“Because I’ve got a letter and an owl on my porch. It says it’s from Hogwarts and a Minerva McGonagall?” Jo explained, returning to her seat on the swing.

“Oh my god! Jo! That’s brilliant! That’s fantastic! Congratulations!” There was silence on Jo’s end of the line and Leili’s amusement grew, “You have no idea what I’m talking about do you.”

“Not a clue.”

“Ok, it’s what 9:30? How about I come over in like an hour and explain it?”

“Let me ask Mom. Leili?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re sure you didn’t send this?”

“Yes, Jo, I’m sure, go talk to your mom,” Jo stood and found her way to her mom’s room.

“Hey, mom? Can Leili come over today?”  
  
“Sure, what time?”  
  
“10:30.”  
  
“Ok,” Jo lifted the phone to her ear again as she closed her mom’s door and went to get dressed, “Leili?”

“I’m here!”

“Mom said ok. So I’ll see you in an hour?”

“Yes, I will see you in an hour, and I will explain everything, trust me, it’s really cool.”

“Ok. Talk to you soon, Bye.”

“Bye!” The hour flew by and soon there was a knock at the front door, Jo ran to open it and found Leili standing there with the biggest grin on her face since the day they met. As Jo let Leili in the house she held up 2 pieces of parchment nearly identical to the ones Jo had received that morning.

“You got one too?”

“I got one too!”

“When?”

“In April, just after my birthday. That’s normally when they send them, around your 11th birthday but I’m guessing that since your birthday is in September they sent it as close to your birthday as they could while still getting a response by the end of the month,” Leili explained as the girls walked to the bedroom Jo shared with her little sister Jillian.

“Hey, Leili!” Jo’s mom called from her room.

“Hi!” Leili called back before joining Jo in her room and greeting Jillian, “Hey, Squirt.”

Jillian pouted, “I’m gonna be taller than you.”

“Yeah well, you aren’t yet and you’re not gonna be for a while,” Leilani told her with a grin.

“So, explain.”

“Remember when you came over for the first time? My tree liked you, and I told you she was a Mauling Myrtle?”

“Yeah, I named her Molly and asked if we could put a swing on her.”  
  
“This,” Leilani said gesturing with the acceptance letter in her hand, “is an acceptance letter to a sort’ve boarding school in Scotland, it’s called Hogwarts. My sister goes there. I am going to be going there in September. And apparently you can too. There are six schools like this that I know of, there’s Hogwarts in Scotland, Beauxbatons Academy in France, The Durmstrang Institute in Norway, and Ilvermorny in the U.S., along with schools in Japan and Russia.

“They’re schools of magic! Jo, it’s _just_ like when you befriended the vicious, magical tree in my front yard! In fact, I’m told Hogwarts _has_ a magical, vicious tree! Durmstrang is an all pure-blood school, I don’t know if Beauxbatons admits muggle-borns or half-bloods but I do know that Hogwarts admits all three and so does Ilvermorny. Basically, you’re a witch and you can do magic, whether you know it or not.”

“What are all the books? What do they mean by robes? And what do you mean by half-blood/pure-blood”

“Ok, books and robes,” Leili pulled her backpack between them, she’d plunked it beside her when they’d sat on the floor and now started pulling things out, “The books all look like this, this is ‘the standard book of spells grade 1’ and the ‘beginner’s guide to transfiguration’, and ‘magical drafts and potions’.” Leili grinned sheepishly, “I came prepared. These are the robes,” she stood and shook out what looked like a black cloak with long sleeves and a small Hogwarts crest on the right side of the chest. "All first years wear plain black robes, since we don’t know what house we’ll be sorted into when we buy them. Hogwarts has a uniform, which is unfortunate, but really it could be worse. You’re allowed to buy robes to match your house as soon as you know it, but most people wait ‘till 2nd year. Under the robes you wear a white button down shirt and a pleated black or grey skirt with knee high socks or tights and plain black shoes.   
  
“First years wear black ties with a Hogwarts crest, you’re allowed to change that as soon as you know your house, but again, most people just wait a year. The cloaks button for winter and are really warm. First and Last day of class you wear a black pointy hat. Not the typical witch’s hat you see in pictures, it’s more like the pointy hat medieval princesses wore, the ones with the veil? Only black and without the veil.” Leili paused for a breath before barreling on. "As for the blood status thing, it’s really stupid. I’m a half blood, one magic parent and one muggle parent, you are muggle-born, two muggle parents and then my dad is actually pureblood, he had two magic parents. And there’s one thing, when we get to school you may find that some people are mean because they have a bug up their butts about mixing magic with muggle.”  
  
“How long have you known about being a witch? I mean you knew before you told me so when did you find out?”

“Since I was 7, I accidentally charmed my snowball to hit my sister in the face."

“You kept mentioning house colors?”

“There are four houses and are ranked in popularity as Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Gryffindor is red and gold, Ravenclaw blue and bronze, Slytherin is green and silver and Hufflepuff is yellow and black.”

“Hufflepuff… Sounds like a marshmallow.”

“Yeah, lots of people make that connection.”

“I like marshmallows.”

“Each house has an animal to represent it, Hufflepuff is a honey badger, and it turns out that there are 11 different species of badger, which I didn’t know. Ravenclaw is not a raven but actually an eagle, apparently eagles are a symbol for a broader vision and strength of mind and heart—I didn’t know that either but I asked Kanani and she told me—Gryffindor is a lion, for bravery, and then Slytherin is a snake, I think because they’re slippery buggers, that or they’re slimy.”

“What house is your sister in?”

“Hufflepuff. What else?” 

“Do you have a wand?”

“Not yet, we’re going in a couple of weeks, all this stuff was my sister’s.”

“Is there a tuition?” A voice said from the doorway, Leili turned to see Jo’s mom leaning against the doorframe.  
  
Leilani swallowed, she hadn't realized they had an audience beyond Jillian. “I don’t know. I never asked.”

“Where do we get school books and various things?” Jo’s mom asked as she joined her youngest daughter on the bed and took the list of books and supplies from Leili.

“There’s this place, it’s called Diagon Alley and it’s hidden behind a pub and blocked from view by this brick wall that rearranges to form an archway when you tap the bricks in the right order. It’s in London. And we get to school by a train; it leaves from King’s Cross Station, technically.”

There was a knock at the front door, so Jo’s mom left the three of them to answer it. On the opposite side of the door was a young man, somewhere around 30 by the look of him. He was almost 6 feet tall and was wearing brightly colored robes. Bright blue eyes combined with pale blonde hair and a strong, if slightly scruffy, jaw made him quite attractive.

“Can I help you?” the girls heard Jo’s mom ask.

“My name is Jack Evans, I work at the post and I’m here to explain to you and your daughter, Jocelyn, about Hogwarts and magic.” He flashed a grin and a badge identifying him as what he claimed to be. “May I come in, Ms. Montgomery?” Jo’s mom stepped aside and held the door open for the post-worker. “Thank you.”

Jack explained when the four of them, plus Jo’s older brother Jonathan, had gathered in the living room that a witch or wizard who worked with the post would explain and deliver the acceptance letter but unfortunately, Jo’s letter had been tossed in the owl pile instead of the hand deliver pile and so the acceptance letter had been sent via owl. Jack explained that there was a muggle to wizard currency converter in Diagon Alley so buying supplies wouldn’t be a problem for them. Hogwarts had no tuition; the cost of magical education was covered by the Ministry of Magic. Jack handed Jo a train ticket that read London to Hogwarts, platform 9 ¾, September 1st at 11 am, King’s Cross Station. He explained that the ticket served mainly as a reminder, it would not be taken away for boarding.   
  
“Well, what do you think Jo?” her mom asked when Jack was done explaining.

“When do I leave?" she asked with barely contained excitement.


	5. Pre-Hogwarts Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shopping in Diagon Alley

August 20th, 1988

-

Two rainy weekends before Jo and Leili were to leave for Hogwarts, Leili and her parents took Jo, Jillian and their mom through the pub that guarded the barrier between the muggle world and the magic world. Jo and her family watched with interest as the bricks in the wall in front of them moved to create an archway which revealed the bustle of an alley crowded with colorful shops and cloaked people. 

Leili watched Jo as Jo watched the people with wide eyes, “This is Diagon alley,” she said with relish, showing off just a little. 

“Wow,” Jo said.

“Ready?” Leili asked taking Jo’s hand.

“Where do we start?”

“Trunks and trolleys first,” Leili’s dad said from under his umbrella. After snagging a trolley, they both bought trunks and went on to find the uniform essentials. They made a stop in Flourish and Blott’s and bought Jo the proper schoolbooks; Leili had her sister’s old books so she was set. They moved on to Potage’s cauldron shop, purchasing two pewter cauldrons before going next door to Wiseacre’s and buying the required brass scales, telescopes and glass phials.

Jillian was having the time of her life; gazing open mouthed at all the things her sister would get to use. To keep her from getting _too_ distracted, Jo set her to schlepping. The girls would hand her the lighter weight items, instructing her to place one of each on each trolley before they carried the heavier things like the telescopes and the cauldrons. Trollies loaded with almost everything on their lists the five of them headed out once more into the rain, on their way to the south side of Diagon alley to meet Ollivander. 

On their way down the alley, Eeylops Owl Emporium and Magical Menagerie distracted all three girls; out front, a bat hung on the sign with a little umbrella keeping the rain off it and wide-awake owls watched passersby. 

Jo was drawn to a barn owl that was on a perch without a cage. The bird had intelligent black eyes and tan feathers that would glow golden when the sun shone on them. Leili wandered inside and admired the animals. As she turned around to see where Jillian had gone—she saw it as partly her responsibility to keep an eye on the girl—a sleek black kitten with amber eyes dropped from a shelf to her shoulder and mewed in her ear. 

Jo pulled her jacket down over her hand and offered her arm to the bird, the owl accepted the proffered arm and they went inside to find Leilani scratching the now purring kitten’s chin and Jillian admiring what looked like a tortoise with rubies growing out of its shell.

“You found a moon-faced barn owl,” Leili grinned at Jo.

“And you found a pretty black cat,” Jo said with a scratch behind the feline’s ears.

“How very Friday the 13th of me, yes?” 

“Our letters say we’re allowed a pet, right?” Jo double-checked, she _really_ liked this owl.

“A cat, an owl, or a toad,” Jillian recited, she’d memorized Jo’s letter with just a little envy the night before.

“Muuum…” Jo said, just as Leili went, “Daaad…” they both flashed their best, ‘pretty please’ grin and they both managed to walk out with a new pet under the condition that they be able to take care of them. Jillian, however was not so lucky, she had to leave the tortoise behind. Her mother told her that the owl was practical, the tortoise was not; she also said, with a conspiratorial smile, that _maybe_ they could get a dog someday. _That_ perked Jillian up considerably.

As the girls walked out of the shop Leilani leaned towards Jo and asked with a grin, “So, is today a good day?” Jo didn’t answer; the day wasn’t over yet. 

They continued down the alley and filed into the dusty wand shop, the bell jingling above the door. Jo, Jillian and Leili immediately began to look around. There were long, skinny boxes piled everywhere, most of them dusty. The sound of a wheeled ladder coming to a stop commanded the attention of the easily distracted girls. 

“Ahh, Aloiki Akina, a reasonably springy Poplar and Dragon, 12 inches, good to see you again. Weren’t you in here a few years ago with your daughter? Cedar and Dragon, 11 ½ inches, reasonably supple; a good wand, I trust she’s doing well with it?” Ollivander asked, addressing Leili’s dad as he descended the ladder. He liked it when former customers came back; it gave him the chance to remember the wand. For the Akina’s, stubbornness was in their blood and so it had a tendency to occur in their wands as well.

“She is; she’s doing very well, she’s starting her third year at Hogwarts soon. This is my second daughter, Leilani and her best friend, Jo and Jo’s family. Leilani and Jo are also starting Hogwarts in September.” Leili’s dad replied, gesturing to the two older girls.

Jo’s mom stepped forward, hand held out to shake, “Diana Montgomery, nice to meet you.”

“Indeed, indeed, all right then,” he shook her hand politely before he walked over to the girls. “Wand arms out please.”

Leili lifted her right arm and whispered to Jo, “Dominant arm.” Jo nodded and lifted her own right arm. Ollivander measured both girls shoulder to finger, wrist to elbow, knee to armpit, and oddly enough around their heads. 

All the while he talked, “Every Ollivander wand has a powerful magical substance as a core: Unicorn hairs, Phoenix tail feathers and Dragon heartstrings. No two of my wands are exactly alike, just as no two witches are exactly alike.” Ollivander turned away from the girls and pulled down a box from one wall and another box from the same spot in the opposite wall.

Jo was handed an Ebony and Dragon heartstring while Leili was given an English Oak and Dragon, the results weren’t catastrophic but were less then favorable. Two more boxes came out, one containing a cherry wand with a unicorn tail hair core and the other an acacia and phoenix feather. “Give them a wave,” he told them. Wands were waved and then taken away just as quickly, “No, no, not those, you might break something.” Next were alder and aspen and this time something _did_ break. 

Wand after wand after wand was tried before Ollivander took a step back and considered the young witches before him, “I wonder…” he said quietly, before turning back to the counter, unburying the first two wands and giving them back; this time, however, he gave Leili the slightly springy 10 ¼ inch Ebony and Dragon and Jo the reasonably supple 13 inch English Oak and Dragon. Warmth spread through their hands and up their arms, followed by a pleasant tingling. They brought the wands up and swung them down; green and gold sparks erupted like fireworks above their heads.

“Oh yeah, today’s a _definitely_ good day,” Jo answered Leili’s earlier question as she admired her wand. 

Ollivander beamed, he always enjoyed the difficult matches.


	6. Pre-Hogwarts Chapter 6

August 21st, 1988

-

The day after their shopping trip, the girls sat on the back porch with books strewn all around them. Books for school, books on mythologies, their favorite reading books, baby naming books. Every book they could think of was there, some borrowed from the library, some already owned, some drudged up out of falling apart boxes in the garage and some they weren’t sure where came from. Together they sat with their new pets, pouring over these books.   
  
“I still think ‘Jareth’ is an excellent name,” Jo maintained, stroking her owl.  
  
“For a _boy_ ,” Leili grinned. “ _Your_ bird is a girl. How about ‘Athena’?” Leili turned the book she was reading around, showing a picture of an ancient Greek coin with an owl on it.

“Tempting. Keep on the Greek thread. How about ‘Faithful’ for your cat?”

“Mm, no, doesn’t feel right. Besides, Faithful was a boy.” Leili had a thing about names. She didn't care about gender neutral names, like Taylor, but she didn't like naming girls after boy characters. Jareth, Faithful, she thought it was weird. Jo had no such qualms.

“Ooh, how about ‘Morrigan’?”

“Better. Kind of a mouthful though.”

“Then just ‘Morgan’,” Jo offered.

“ _Morgan_ , I like it! What say you, fuzz?” Leili’s cat purred her approval. “Success! Morgan it is! Ok, now for you, let’s see, there’s ‘Selene’, Greek Titan Goddess of the moon. Or, there’s Diana, the Roman equivalent.”

Jo made a face of distaste, “No. And I’m not naming my bird after my _mother._ ”

Leili laughed, “Okay, how about Artemis? Another Greek Goddess associated with the moon. She is the ‘Olympian goddess of hunting, the wilderness and wild animals.’”

“ _Yes_! That one!”


	7. Pre-Hogwarts Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I could probably just /not/ post this chapter but I didn't want a jarring jump between home and school so here. It's short, only about 200 words.

September 1st, 1988

-

This was it.   
  
Today was the day.   
  
They were going to Hogwarts today!

Jo and Leilani met outside of King’s Cross with their new school things in tow. Leilani’s sister Kanani had the look of one who was being imposed upon, her sister’s enthusiasm was irritating, as was most of the things her sister did. Their group made their way unnoticed through the crowded train station. When they stopped in front of the barrier between platforms 9 and 10, Jo’s sister, Jillian, tugged on her mom’s sleeve.

“What’re they doing?” she asked.

“Watch and find out,” her mom replied, equally baffled.

“Ready, Jo?” Leilani asked, “watch this,” she said as Kanani walked straight at the barrier and then vanished into it.

“Woah. Cool,” Jo said. Leilani turned and threw her arms around her dad’s neck in a hug good bye.   
  
“Bye daddy,” she gave him a squeeze which he returned before she hugged her mom, “Bye mom!”  
  
“See ya, sweetie,” her dad said as Leili got a firm grip on her trolley and set off for the barrier at a bit of a run.

“Come on, Jo!” she called as she went through. Jo bid her mom and sister farewell and followed Leili through. 

On the other side, Kanani waited impatiently. Not that there was anything new there: Kanani was usually impatient. New and returning students and their parents milled around the platform. Kanani showed her sister inside and left them to their own devices as she met up with her own friends. Jo and Leili settled into a compartment near the front of the train, let Artemis and Morgan out of their crates and waited for the train to move.


	8. The Castle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mkay, here we are first day at School. I'm actually combining two chapters into one here because well, the first was kinda pointless? And they're both short.

September 1st, 1989

First Year  
-

As Jo and Leilani stepped off the Hogwarts express for the first time, Leilani’s sister, Kanani, directed them towards a voice calling for first years. Jo and Leili followed the hairy half-giant to a lake where magically propelled boats awaited the students.   
  
The girls climbed into a boat and were joined by three boys, two had red hair and the third wore his black hair in dreadlocks. The boys sat in the back of the boat and whispered excitedly about something, Jo and Leili didn’t pay them much mind. The boats set off across the water and soon the Hogwarts Castle could be seen across the lake.

“I want one,” Jo said.

Leili looked from her best friend to the castle and back before saying, “I think this means we have one."

The group gathered together outside the doors to the Great Hall waiting. McGonagall went over the basics, they'd be sorted into their houses, triumphs would earn them points, rule breaking would lose them points. She left them fidgeting and uncertain and trying to primp as best they could to make a good impression. When she returned, they fell obediently into a line and followed her inside. 

“Akina, Leilani,” Professor McGonagall called after a few names. Leili plunked herself on the stool and watched the brim of the hat as it scoured her mind.  
  
“Quietly stubborn I see… a strong sense of loyalty yes… timid but eager to please. Also a bit of a show off… Hmm. Oh yes, I know Just where to put you,” the hat crooned to itself before bursting out with an animated, “HUFFLEPUFF!” 

Professor McGonagall lifted the hat off of Leilani’s head and she headed happily for her sister’s table where students wearing yellow and black ties reminded her, surprisingly, of sunflowers.

Loud Sunflowers.

On her way to her new housemates, she stopped when she found Jo; they’d gotten separated on their way to the doors of the Great Hall. She beamed and waved before scampering the rest of the way to her sister’s side. Jo smiled and gave a short wave back to her friend. Several names flew by and the line grew shorter and shorter until Professor McGonagall called out,

“Montgomery, Jocelyn.” Jo stiffened slightly as she walked to the stool, as she sat the hat came down and she then understood why the scores of kids before her had focused on what little of the hat they could see.

“Hmm. Viciously loyal, a good mind… not a coward but not spectacularly brave either, yes... issues with authority figures, well we’ll fix that quick enough.” Jo glared at the Hat’s brim. For a talking Hat, it was pretty rude. After a moment of silence, “HUFFLEPUFF!” rang out once again. Suddenly stunned that the hat hadn’t turned her away for not belonging, she slipped off the stool and started the walk to the boisterous table of students who, annoyingly, reminded her of bees. 

About halfway to the table she was broken out of her daze by cold fingers taking hold of her hand. Startled, Jo looked down and saw Leili's familiar bubble cut of light brown hair. Smiling, she let herself be led to the seat across from Leilani and her sister.  
  
More names and houses rang out along with ecstatic cheers of the four houses. After the sorting had finished the hat was removed and Head Master Dumbledore stood, showing off deep maroon robes with small yellow blobs bordering the sleeves, cleared his throat,  
  
“Before we stuff our faces and rumbly bellies I’d like to welcome our new First Years by leading you all in our school anthem. Now, everyone pick a tune—any tune—Got it? Let’s begin,” he said, clearing his throat once more and bouncing into a joyful song. A ribbon unfurled itself over his head and words began to scroll across so the first years who didn't know the song could still participate.

“That is Nymphadora Tonks, we don’t call her by her first name, she’s a fifth year,” Kanani reported to Jo and Leilani when she noticed them staring at her after the song.

“And now, we eat!” Dumbledore announced and with a wave of his arms every table became piled high with food.


	9. Flying lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First flying lesson

September 13th, 1989

First Year

\--

“Good Afternoon, class,” a witch with short, spiky grey hair greeted as they spilled out onto the grassy training grounds. She had a button nose and remarkable yellow eyes. She reminded Jo of an imaginary friend she’d once had, a giant eagle with bright yellow eyes that she used to ride around the school.  
  
“Good Afternoon, Madam Hooch,” the class greeted back.

“Welcome to your first flying lesson! Now, pick a broomstick and stand on the left, come on, hurry it up. Now, extend your right hand over your brooms and say ‘up!’,” Madam Hooch directed. 

“UP!” They called, and a few brooms leapt right into their prospective rider’s hand others, not so much. Jo’s broom zoomed into her hand on her second command.

Leili’s was a bit overzealous, it took her two tries and when her broom did leave the ground, it slapped into her palm with so much force that she had to force it back down to shoulder level. “Bad Broom,” she scolded quietly. 

When students struggled Madam Hooch added, “With feeling!”. That helped most students. “Now, once you've got a hold of your broom, I want you to mount it. Grip it tight, you don't want to be sliding off the end,” she allowed a moment for the firsties to get settled before continuing. 

She adjusted the grips that needed adjusting before taking her whistle and saying, “When I blow my whistle, I want each of you to kick off from the ground, hard. Keep your broom steady, hover for a moment, then lean forward slightly and touch back down. On my whistle: three, two, one.” she blew and one by one students pushed off and touched back down. A few had trouble getting up or getting down but over all, they did pretty well. The next step was to learn how to fall so as to avoid injury. 

“Ideally, you will never fall off your broom, but it does happen, so you want to be prepared. Now, kick off and hover a bit, just high enough that your feet are about a foot off the ground, no higher.” Once they were in the air Madam Hooch cast a cushioning charm on the grass. “You want to land feet first, but that isn’t always possible so, if falling forward, bend your knees and elbows and bring your arms in front of your face.” She blew her whistle and barked, “Begin!” 

Students began to roll off their brooms, some landing back first and getting the air knocked out of them, others on their sides, which forced them to flop and again get the wind knocked out of them, Leili was one of those such students. Some were able to land on their sides and roll to their fronts, keeping their elbows and knees bent. Few were able to land on their arms and knees immediately, but those who did would have the fewest sore spots later. “Good, some of you who landed on your sides were able to roll to your fronts, that’s good. And I think I saw one or two of you who actually managed to land on your feet, that’s very good. Now, try it again.” Again and again they fell until they had all managed to fall well, if not properly. “Alright, class dismissed. Well done today.” The class got to their feet and began to head back inside. 

“Well, that was fun!” Jo said cheerfully, she’d somehow managed a cat-like landing.

“Ow,” Leili laughed.


	10. Winter Malady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jo's sick in bed

December 20th, 1988

First Year

\--

It was Tuesday, Jo was tucked in bed for the third day in a row now, and her fever kept climbing. Between classes Leili received reports from her cat, Morgan; reports that basically consisted of Morgan bringing Leili Jo’s thermometer. Jo had tried to go to class that morning, but when she’d almost fainted on her way, Leili had ordered her back to bed and had given strict instructions to Morgan and Artemis, to keep her posted and Jo in bed.   
  
When Jo’s fever had first spiked, late Sunday morning, Leilani had begged, _begged_ Jo to go see Madam Pomfrey but Jo, in her usual stubbornness, had refused. She hated the antiseptic smell of the hospital wing and wasn’t overly fond of medicine, especially pills. 

So, Leili had borrowed a book on medicinal herbs and brewed a tea of elderberry, rosemary, Echinacea, licorice, chamomile, goldenseal, and yarrow. It didn’t taste very good but it helped some, keeping the fever under 102 degrees. So Leilani went to class and worried. 

In her Monday potions class, her cauldron burned too hot for too long and exploded. In her Tuesday charms class, they were practicing a fire-making spell on candles. Due to her uneasy state, Leili’s flame went from non-existent to burning the table. She yelped and backed quickly away from the table as Professor Flitwick doused the fire. The only class that was safe was her Tuesday History of Magic class, entirely due to the fact that it was a book work rather than spell work class. She was pretty sure if she tried Transfiguration on Thursday, McGonagall would send her back to bed.

During lunch Leilani bypassed the Great Hall and snuck instead into the kitchens where she begged a favor of one of the house-elves working there. “My best friend is sick, do you have any soup I can take her? And maybe a small bucket for water?” The house elf she asked was really quite accommodating, maybe it was because Leili had looked so pathetic, or maybe it was because she’d asked nicely. She’d never had a house elf growing up, they were interesting little beasties. 

The house elf found a bowl and some soup, bread and ice water and put it on a tray. Leili took the tray, thanking the elf profusely and walked very quickly back to Jo. When Leili arrived in the dorm she found a bucket of cold water and a washcloth sitting beside Jo’s bed. “Praise the House-elves!” she said before putting the tray down and picking up the wet cloth. She rung it out and folded it up before placing it on Jo’s forehead.

Jo stirred, “Hey,” she croaked.

“Hi,” Leili smiled, “How ya feeling, sickie?”

“Like I was hit by a truck. Shouldn’t you be in class?”

“It’s lunch time; you hungry? I’ve got bread and soo-oup.” Jo gave Leili her hands and let herself to help into sitting up. Jo ate some and struggled to change her sweaty clothes before going back to bed.

“Hey, do I remember Artemis and Morgan taking my temperature?” Jo asked as Leili called for her cat.

“Yeah, they’ve been keeping tabs on you for me; you should’ve seen the looks I got in charms when Morgan came in. You’re sure you won’t let me go to Madam Pomfrey? Your fever isn’t going down. It’s at 102.6.”

“I’m not dying; my fever isn’t anywhere near 103. I’ll be fine,” Jo insisted. Leili sighed, blowing her bangs out of her face. She picked up her History of Magic book and sat beside the bed to read about Emeric the Evil to Jo, dabbing at her friend’s sweaty forehead with the wet cloth every so often. Luckily, Leili didn’t have any more classes, as reading about Emeric the evil put even her to sleep. 

When Jo’s fever did spike to 103, Artemis and Morgan decided to take matters into their own hands, or, well, _limbs_. The pair of them made an interesting sight as they hurried down the halls towards the hospital wing. It was an even more interesting sight when a few minutes later they were seen going back the way they’d come with Madam Pomfrey chasing after them. 

Madam Pomfrey quietly entered the girls’ dorm and found both totally asleep, a small bomb could have gone off and they wouldn’t have budged. Leilani was half curled up on the floor, her history book in her lap and her head pillowed on the arm she’d draped over the side of Jo’s bed. She gently closed the door and levitated Leilani into her own bed before walking over and waking Jo. 

“I told Leili not to get you…” Jo protested hoarsely.

“She didn’t. See?” Madam Pomfrey said gesturing to Leilani asleep in her bed. “She stayed up to take care of you last night, didn’t she?”

“And the night before, and the night before that,” Jo admitted. She’d told Leili to get some sleep, but she’d refused. Eventually her own body had won out and she’d crashed.

“You should have come to me immediately, I can cure a mild fever in a heartbeat, this though, this is going to take all night and you’re going to have to take all sorts of nasty things.”

“That’s exactly what I was trying to avoid,” Jo croaked.

“That’s how it usually is, dear. Now, drink this,” she said, pressing a bottle to Jo’s lips. She nearly choked on the muddy liquid. “Good girl. Now, get some sleep and whenever you wake up, drink lots of water. And take these,” Madam Pomfrey ordered, gesturing to the vials she was leaving on the nightstand. Madam Pomfrey stood, drew the curtains tightly over the dorm’s round windows, picked up the history book, put it on the table and left, the door clicking closed quietly behind her.

“Bad Cat,” Jo scolded Morgan. Looking up she scolded Artemis, “Bad Owl.” 

Morgan ignored her, going to curl up by Leili’s feet. Artemis stared back seemingly saying, “Serves you right.” Then again, that may have been the fever talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the idea for this one first come up, I dismissed it for being too crack-ficcy for this story, turns out, once I wrote it, it was less crack than I had expected.


	11. Classes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm merging a bunch of chapters here, I'm trying to give you sense of who they are before I add Harry and his problems to the mix, but at the same time, I'm trying to minimize frankly superfluous chapters.

Late April, 1990

First Year

-

Potions. Jo’s most hated class. They were making swelling potions today and Jo was having a miserable time of it. She had thought she’d be good at potions but no, if it didn’t blow up in her face it turned green and all ‘monster from the deep’-ey.   
  
Leili on the other hand was actually good at potions, her transfiguration wasn’t so fantastic but she could make a decent potion if given enough time and uninterrupted concentration. That’s not to say she didn’t blow her cauldrons up occasionally but hers went kablooie with less frequency than Jo’s did. 

Jo attacked the mortar fervently, crushing the nettles and pufferfish eyes, which made a disgusting squelching sound. In her peripheral vision she saw Leili shudder at the sound, it was the one thing she knew Leili hated about potions, not so much where the ingredients came from, but the noise they made when crushed.  
  
45 minutes and 20 seconds later, she slipped in the bat spleen and stirred 4 times anti-clockwise, a long 30 seconds and a wand wave later Professor Snape made his rounds past the girls’ cauldrons. He scrutinized both potions, and was initially pleased that Jo had managed to not blow up her cauldron this time. He lingered over the cauldron for a moment. It was perfect. He glanced from the cauldron to Jo, to Leilani and back to the cauldron before turning away.

“Good job—” Jo brightened, he’d never praised her before! “—Miss Akina.”  
  
Jo slumped and Leili’s forehead hit her palm with a slap.  
  
  
In Professor McGonagall's Class:  
  
“Could I have your attention please? Today, we will be transforming objects into a bird. Like so. One, two, three. _Avifors_.” With a wave of her wand and a flash of blue light the small orange statue on the stool in front of the black board became a small orange bird with a bluish beak. 

The bird chirped and flew around the room before settling above the door. Professor McGonagall left them to their own work. The classroom was abuzz with spell activity. Flashes of blue light lit the room and by the end of class several students had managed to turn their statues into brightly colored birds. 

Jo was discovering her knack for transfiguration and her bird had taken a liking to her, hopping around the desk and chirping. Leili however was discovering her lack of talent for transfiguration and had managed by the end of class to turn her statue into a bird, however it remained stone. 

Leili stole a mildly jealous glance at Jo’s bird and nudged Jo with her shoulder, “Lucky duck.”  
  


In July:  
  
They were leaving today, going home for summer. Holding hands and dragging their belongings in trucks behind them Jo and Leilani joined the crowds of students heading outside. 

They had all been reminded that they were not allowed to do magic outside of school and not to forget about their summer homework. It was funny, Jo thought, coming seemed so exciting, but leaving wasn’t nearly as much fun. Normally, she looked forward to the summer holidays. 

Seeing a row of black carriages Jo asked, “We don’t go back in the boats?”

“Not ‘till we graduate,” Leili told her, “for the next 6 years, we take one of these to and from the train and when we graduate the boats take us back.” Leili said as she lifted first her trunk, then Jo’s into the luggage compartment in the back of the carriage. Jo climbed in and Leilani followed and as if by magic, which was highly probable as this was a _school for magic,_ the carriage began to roll forward.  
  
“It looks sort’ve sad,” Jo said. “The school, with all the lights out and the rooms all empty,” she clarified. 

Leili turned around for one last look and smiled before turning around again and saying, “Don’t worry, we’ll be back.”


	12. Quidditch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jo tries out for Quidditch

Mid-September, 1990

Second Year

\--

Over the summer, Leili had explained to Jo the rules of the game; they had even played mock games in her backyard, with her dad supervising and a concealment charm cast around the yard. Leili’s dad had charmed two small balls plus a soccer ball and a walnut to zoom around the back yard and had let the girls play Quidditch, as best as they could with only two, sometimes three, people playing. 

Jo had turned out to be quite the beater and it was at Leili’s dad’s suggestion and Leili’s persistent badgering that Jo had signed up for tryouts. Now it was the morning of and Leili looked at Jo’s empty plate. “Jo, you need to eat something,” she said.

“Can’t, too nervous.”

“If you don’t, you’ll fall into hypoglycemic shock, you’ll get the shakes and you won’t be able to hit the bludger and you won’t make the team. You’ll have to wait another year to try out. Now, _you_ don’t want that and _I_ don’t want that, so eat your breakfast.” 

Jo picked up a piece of toast and nibbled at it. “You’ll be there for luck?” Jo asked,

“I’ve got the pom-poms ready and everything,” Leili nodded. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Leili tried to reassure her, giving Jo a friendly bump with her shoulder.

Jo felt the cold morning air pick up her ponytail as she took to the sky with her bat. She shot a quick glance to the benches where she saw Leilani standing at the railing, bouncing up and down and hooting encouragingly. Leili had made good on the pom-poms, they were even in Hufflepuff colors. Jo smiled and turned her attention back to the game at hand. A bludger came whizzing at her and with a mighty ‘WHACK!’ Jo sent it flying away. Again and again, Jo whacked the ball away. She missed it only once, when her reflexes hadn’t been quite fast enough to switch the bat to her other hand and hit the ball when it headed for her other side.  
  
Those trying out had to sit and wait until everyone had gone and the team captain had chosen the new players and announced it to the assembled group. 

“Well? How’d you do?” Leili asked after the announcements were made and Jo was free to go.

“I made the reserves!” Jo said with a twinge of disappointment, she hadn’t made the team, but she’d been good enough to warrant a placement as a back up. That was something, at least.

“What did they say?”

“They said I needed to work on my left reflexes but that if anything happened to one of the other beaters before the game, I’m in.”  
  
“Well, that’s good! We’ll practice again during summer, but at least they liked you well enough to keep you on in the reserves.” Leili said.


	13. Fire Away!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snowball fight

Early-December, 1990

Second Year

-

“You said you accidently charmed your snowball to hit your sister, right?” Jo asked, it was her first winter actually in the snow at Hogwarts, she’d been too sick last year.

This was their last week before they headed home for the winter holidays.  
  
“In the face, yeah,” Leili replied as she rolled a snowball across the ground to make it big enough for a snowman torso while Jo patted the head ball for a good, even roundness. As such, Leili was unprepared for a snowball to be launched at the back of her head. 

“You mean like that?” Jo grinned wickedly, her wand still out.

“Oooh!” Leili shivered, “I’ll get you for that, Jo!” There was a fire in her eyes now and Jo grinned, rolling up another snowball.

“Hit me with your best shot! _Put up your dukes, let’s get down to it~!_ ” Jo half sang. She and Leili both loved music and this song was just _so_ fitting, she couldn’t help but give her a line, that is, before she launched another snowball at Leili’s face.

“Ok, you wanna fight dirty? Fine, we’ll fight dirty,” Leili grinned. She scooped up a snowball and just as she prepared to throw it, she whispered a charm and another snowball thwacked into the back of Jo’s head with a wet smack. Jo turned to see who was joining their little game when Leili’s first snowball whacked her in the side of the face and she heard Leili laugh. 

That laugh ended in “Ack!” as Jo launched another snowball at her. Both girls scooped up handfuls of snow, compressed them into balls and threw. Leili ducked and Jo dodged to the side, Leilani was hit, Jo was spared.   
  
“Curse you and your aim!” Leili laughed as Jo held her arms out in the universal sign for _‘come and get me’_ and grinned, just a touch mockingly.

So, Leili scooped up handfuls of soft snow and formed a ball, watching as Jo sighed and looked at an imaginary watch, and the minute she took her eyes off of her, Leili dropped the snowball and ran at Jo, tackling her with an enthusiastic, “Rah!”

Jo shrieked in surprise as she fell back into the snow. She soon got her revenge though, as she and Leili wrestled. As they rolled around in the snow, she grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it down the back of Leili’s shirt. 

Now it was Leilani’s turn to shriek, “Cold!” and Jo promptly laughed her butt off. 

When a 3rd year Slytherin came over to make a disparaging comment about their frolicking in the fresh snow both girls took out their wands and charmed the bottom of their abandoned snowman to hurtle itself at his face, knocking him over. The snow that didn’t hit him re-formed into separate, smaller snowballs and began to pelt him as he sat there with snow in his mouth. The girls laughed as he left and went back to attacking each other. 

Jo scrambled to her feet and sought shelter behind a tree, “Cheater!” Leili cried, her glee shining clear through her voice. Jo peeked out from behind her tree and ducked back just quick enough to avoid a face full of snow. In retaliation she grabbed a quick snowball and ran out from behind her tree. She aimed for Leili and got her shoulder. 

Leili threw another but with Jo safely behind the tree it was ineffective. So Jo came out grinning and held her arms out in her best _‘look at me I’m a target!’_ impression, and was immediately pelted with snowballs that would follow her when she tried to escape them. They made quite a sight, Jo running and Leili chasing, each bewitching snowballs to follow and hit the other. Finally, Jo stopped running and Leili followed suit, both panting and cold but thoroughly thrilled.

“Truce?” Leili asked.

“Truce.” Jo affirmed and they cancelled the enchantments on their snowballs, allowing them to fall to the ground with soft thumps. 

Then, a snowball each flew into the sides of their faces. They turned to see another ‘Puff grinning impishly at them. The impish grin transformed into an ‘uh-oh’ face very quickly when he saw the evil grins Jo and Leilani shared. He took off running when he heard their battle cry.  
  
“Fire away!”


	14. Gryffindork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jo has a nightmare

Sometime in March, 1991

Second Year

-

Jo lay in her narrow bed at school, tossing and turning this way and that. She was dreaming. Or Nightmaring, if that’s a word. She was a first year again, surprisingly tiny and so, so nervous. “Montgomery, Jocelyn” Professor McGonagall called and Jo burrowed her way to the front of the crowd. She walked up the steps to the stool, turned and sat.   
  
The Professor lowered the sorting hat onto her head and it began to whisper mumblings and grumblings in her ear. “Let’s see here, plenty of loyalty yes, ooh and a good mind here, yes, a solid thirst for knowledge. I could put you in Hufflepuff, sure. But it takes plenty of courage to be so far from home, in a completely new environment. Oh that’s a stubborn streak I see, yes also a good fit for Gryffindor. But also a good place for Hufflepuff, hmmm. You had quite a bit of nerve to stand up to those bullies, yes, quite a bit. And speaking of nerves, I see that hit one! A rather short leash on your temper. All good things. Yes, GRYFFINDOR!”  
  
Jo’s heart cracked and she shot a glance towards Leili who was trying to look like she couldn’t be prouder but couldn’t quite hide the twinge of disappointment. Her sister had been sorted into Ravenclaw and now she was all alone in Hufflepuff, a house full of strangers. 

Before the hat was pulled off her head Jo snarled, “You’re wrong!” But the hat just laughed as it was lifted away and then she was being ushered to the Gryffindor table where she sat and tried not to feel as though she might cry. She glared at anyone who dared smile at her. 

“Jo,” Leili’s voice suddenly said in her ear, her hand shaking her shoulder. “JO!” she half-shouted half-whispered, shaking some more. “Jo, wake up!” Jo blinked. Her eyes shot open, the candle beside the bed cast a flickering yellow light over everything.

“Where am I?” she asked hurriedly. 

“School. Bed. You were dreaming. I think…”  
  
Jo’s eyes shot to the walls, yellow with brown accents. Hufflepuff Colors. “Oh thank god. I’m a Hufflepuff.”

“What would you have done if you weren’t?”

“Snuck out of Gryffindor tower, snuck in here and made Professor Sprout adopt me.”

Leili grinned, “Good Plan. So, Gryffindor, huh?” Leili climbed onto the bed beside Jo. “Scootch over."

Jo snorted, obliging. “Try Gryffindor _k_.”

"Tell me about the dream,” Leili said, running her fingers through Jo’s hair after Jo plopped her head in her lap.

“Too awful,” Jo yawned. Leili continued stroking Jo’s hair.

"Tell me anyway.” So Jo did, and her sentences were punctuated by yawns. When dawn rose hours later, Jo’s head was still in Leili’s lap and Leili’s fingers were still in Jo’s hair, but they were both sound asleep.


	15. Scoping out the firsties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter's come to Hogwarts

September 1st, 1991

Third Year

-

The Hogwarts express was as much of a statement as ever, stationed in King’s Cross as always. The girls arrived with plenty of time to spare, and didn’t hurry on their way to their compartment. They liked the one in the front; it was easy to scope out the firsties when every one of them had to pass your compartment.  
  
“Lord, they get smaller every year,” Leili commented as a group of firsties walked by.

“Is it possible that we were that little once?” Jo asked.

“Me, maybe. But not you,” Leili grinned, Jo grinned back.

“Oh look at that one, She looks promising,” Jo said, gesturing to a girl with massively curly hair and her nose in a particularly thick book. 

“That one looks like a weasel,” Leili commented about a boy with white blonde hair and a pompous look on his face.

“Hmm. Or a ferret, with that hair,” Jo said and Leili couldn’t control the laugh that bubbled out of her.

“Oh, that wasn’t nice!” Leili grinned.

“Oh, what calling him a _weasel_ was any better?” Jo retorted with a smile.

Leili chose not to dignify that with a response. “Well, well, look at that. Black hair, green eyes, scar on his forehead. Good grief, he’s skinny!”

“Hmm, if he's a ‘Puff we'll have to put him on a meal plan.”

“Definitely.”

“Trevor?” a chubby little boy called, “Where did you hop off to?”

“Eugh, I hope a cat didn't get it...” Jo said, earning a dirty look from Leili who leaned out the door of their compartment.

“Lose something?”

“My toad; you haven’t seen him, have you?”

Leili shook her head, “Nope, sorry. Tell you what, how about you tell me your name and if we do see him, we’ll come and find you.”

“N-Neville.”

“Nice to meet you, Neville. Go on then, we’ll keep an eye out for Trevor.” Jo snorted as Neville walked away.

“Goody-goody,” Jo muttered under her breath with a smile.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Leili teased.

Having nothing to say to that, Jo simply stuck out her tongue and continued to watch the passersby. They sat in silence until the train began to move, when Leili leaned over and shut the compartment door before pulling two things out of her bag. One was a plastic bag with gummy worms in it and the other, a deck of cards. 

“Gin, or slap jack?” Leilani asked with a grin.

“The last time we played slap jack, your hand hurt for a week, so, gin,” Jo decided and Leili tossed her the cards.

“Here, you shuffle, I’ll deal.” After the cards were shuffled and dealt the girls picked them up and began to put them in order when suddenly Jo heard something. She quietly put down her cards and pressed her ear to the window of their compartment door. There it was again.

“Jo? Wha—?” Leili stopped midsentence as Jo held up a hand to quiet her. Quietly and ever so slowly, Jo slid the door open and sure enough, sitting right in the middle of the corridor was a large toad.  
  
She tiptoed closer before scooping it up in her hands with a triumphant, “Ha! Gotcha, little beastie!”

“What is it?” Leilani asked.

“If I had to guess? I’d say Neville’s toad, Trevor.” Jo said turning around to show Leili.

As Jo and Leili walked down the train looking for Neville they ran into the bushy haired girl they’d noticed earlier, only this time she was sans book.

“Have either of you seen a toad? A boy named Neville’s lost his.”

“We were just looking for him actually,” Leilani said.

“This wouldn’t happen to be said toad, would it?” Jo asked, thrusting the toad forward as though she expected the girl to kiss it. The girl squeaked and stepped back, before clapping a hand over her mouth, as if she could stop the sound from escaping further. 

“I-I’ll take him back…” she said, reaching for the toad, a look of utter disgust on her face. Jo looked at her and grinned.

“Nah, he’s a slippery beastie, I’ll hold him. You lead the way.” They saw the firstie sigh in relief, she _really_ hadn’t wanted to hold the toad. “What’s your name, by the way?” Jo asked, so they wouldn’t have to call her ‘that bushy haired firstie’ later.

“Hermione Granger.”

“Ooh, Greek! Princess of Sparta, daughter of renowned beauty Queen Helen and King Menelaus, niece of King Agamemnon; well, lead the way Hermione,” Leili chirped. 

Jo snickered.  
  
Hermione turned on her heel and took the two older students back down the way she’d come. She stopped and opened a compartment towards the back of the train, usually a good sign somebody had gotten there late.

“Neville?”

“Hermione! Did you find him?”

“She didn’t, but we did!” Jo said happily, holding up the toad, who—upon sight of Neville—tried to wiggle out of Jo’s grasp. “Oh no, you don’t, you wee beastie!” She tightened her grip on the slippery creature before reaching over the top of Hermione, who shrieked when she found her-self eye level with Trevor’s wart covered back. Hermione ducked and slid out of the way, allowing Jo to step forward and deposit Trevor into Neville’s waiting hands. “Look after him, he’s a slippery one.”

“Thank you!” Neville called as the girls headed back to their compartment to change into their school things and finish their game. 

Once out of earshot Leili asked, “Who’s the goody-goody now?”


	16. Fluffy and Favors

October 30th, 1991

Third year

\--

“ _Peeves!_ ” Leili hissed as the Poltergeist swooped overhead. The girls had been following the Gryffindor trio (and Neville) and had ducked into an empty classroom to avoid being seen.   
  
“Students out of bed,” he singsonged. “Students out of bed!”

“ _Peeves!”_ Leili whispered louder.

“Filch is coming! Students out bed! I’ll tell Filch I will!” the bell on his hat jingled, seconding his delight.

“If you distract Filch from us and Harry and his friends, we will give you a favor!” Jo said, thinking quickly. Peeves stopped his cackling and zoomed in to within and inch of their faces. “If you distract Filch long enough for the seven of us to get away, Leili and I will let you ask three things of us.”

“Threesies for sevensies? Students out of be-ed!” Peeves called toward the door.

“Each!” Leili amended. You can ask three things _each_ of us. You won’t tell Filch or Harry and his friends. Deal?”

“Deal!” Peeves cackled joyfully. He sailed through the closed door, startling the already terrified trio.

“Peeves! Shut up Peeves, please! You’ll get us thrown out!” Hermione begged.

"Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty!" He sing-songed.

"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please!"

"Should tell Filch, I should," Peeves said in a saintly voice, his eyes sparkling wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."

"Get out of the way," snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves. Big mistake.

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellowed, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!" Still hiding in the unused classroom, Jo was banging her head against the wall. Leili slipped her hand between Jo’s forehead and the wall to stave off any possible brain damage. 

“Well. That went well.” Leili sighed.

“Six favors. _Six._ And he’s _still_ calling Filch. I’m going to blast him into _oblivion_!” Jo groused, lurching for the door.

Leili jerked her back, “Oh no, you’re not. You go out there now, you could be seen and being seen is a _really_ bad idea.”

"Which way did they go, Peeves?" they heard Filch say. "Quick, tell me."

"Say 'please."'

"Don't mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?"

"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves in that annoying singsong tone.

"All right—please," Filch grouched.

"NOTHING! Ha ha! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Hahaaaaa!" they heard the sound of Peeves’ belled hat jingling away and Filch cursing in rage. After Filch stomped away, the girls opened the door carefully. The corridor was empty, Harry and his friends were gone, Filch had left and Peeves was nowhere to be seen. As they began to creep quickly away, growling began to fill the corridor. 

“Uh-oh.” They ran toward the door, Jo yanking it open just as Harry’s hand turned the doorknob on the other side. The door swung open, hiding them briefly. Harry grabbed the edge of the door and slammed it shut. The girls pressed themselves into the shadows against the wall as far as they could. They were lucky. The kids were too focused on the dog on the other side to notice them. They ran down the halls, not stopping until they were in front of the Gryffindor Portrait. Once the kids were out of sight, the girls hightailed it back to their own dorm. 

“That must’ve been some dog, to scare them so badly,” Leili said.

“You didn’t see it?”

Leili shook her head, "No."

“I caught a glimpse through the crack in the door when it opened. It was big. Like ‘Clifford the big red dog’ big.”


	17. Obscurial

Halloween 1991

Third year  
-

The girls sat in their History of Magic class listening to Professor Binns drone on and on. Leili raised her hand and went unnoticed for what felt like eternity. 

“Professor Binns,” she interrupted, “I know we’re discussing witch hunts during the 14th century, but I have a somewhat tangentially related question. During the Witch Hunts, children would suppress their magic to avoid suspicion, thus becoming, um, um-um-um, um,” Leili rubbed her hand over her eyes, listening to Professor Binns was always exhausting and mind-numbing. “Oh, _shoot_! I can never… Jo, what's the name I’m looking for? Not Occamy or Oculus, but…?”

“Obscurial,” Jo drawled helpfully. For some reason Leili _could not_ remember this one word.

“Yes, _Obscurial_! Thank you!”

“No problem,” Jo grinned. They’d discussed it during their research for their summer homework, a scroll of parchment on how “Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless” and Leili was right, it was completely tangential from the current topic; but Jo was interested to hear Binns’ answer.

“These kids would become Obscurials and their magic would spin wildly out of control and usually kill them. My question is this: What would happen if you gave an Obscurial a wand? What if you _taught_ them how to use and control their magic? Would it reverse the process?”

“Your question, young lady, would be better suited to a ‘Theory of Magic’ class, as I deal in facts, not legends, myths or _theories_. That being said, there hasn’t been a documented case of an Obscurial since New York in 1926, so no one has ever tried what you are suggesting.”

“We could try to catch ourselves one, but it would be _quite_ the endeavor,” Jo said cheerfully.

“What part of ‘not a documented case since 1926’, didn’t make it through your thick skull, Montgomery?” Someone in class sneered.

“What part of ‘ _documented case’_ or ‘ _quite the endeavor’_ didn’t make it through yours?” Jo shot back. “Just because nobody’s written it down doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I mean, Obscuials were thought to be extinct—for lack of better word—in 1926, weren’t they?”

“Not a documented case in over a century, is how I remember it,” Leili chimed in. 

“ _Enough!_ ” Professor Binns cried, truly fed-up with the turn of conversation. “It’s never been tried, and Obscurials are so rare as to be non-existent so it’s highly unlikely it will ever _be_ tried. Now, back to Witch hunts,” the few people who had perked up for Leili’s question fell right back to sleep and Jo and Leili went back to scrawling notes to each other in their notebooks.

“Told ya he wouldn’t answer,” Jo scrawled.

“It was worth a shot,” Leili scribbled back with a shrug.


	18. Troll in the Dungeon

Halloween 1991.

Third Year

\--

“TROLL IN THE DUNGEON! TROOOLLL IN THE DUNGEOON! Thought you ought to know…” Quirell yelled, running down through the great hall. Students screamed and stood, throwing down their food. Jo and Leili looked at each other.  
  
“SILENCE!” Dumbledore stood, “Everyone will please not panic! Now, prefects please escort your house to the dormitories. Teachers will follow me to the dungeons.” The girls stood with the rest of their house to follow the prefects back to the common room. Once out of the great hall, Jo took Leilani’s hand and with a quick tug she separated them from the crowd, to follow Harry and Ron. They watched the boys head towards the girl’s bathroom and spotted a very large shadow on the wall.

“Troll. Not good.” Jo whispered dragging Leili along behind her a little faster. They stopped just outside the bathroom, watching as Hermione skittered across the floor to hide under the sinks. After much screaming and crashing Harry was on top of the troll and Leili whipped out her wand, ready to catch him, should he fall. 

“Do something!” Harry yelled after he’d lost his wand up the troll’s nose, and the troll had grabbed the boy nuisance by the foot.

“What?!” Ron asked, watching Harry dodge the club.

“Anything! Hurry up!” Leili and Jo watched silently; ready to jump in at a moments notice. Ron brandished his wand, Jo turned to glance down the hallway while Leili stayed glued to the problem at hand. 

“Swish and Flick!” Hermione yelled.

“Wingardium Leviosa!” Leili whispered at the same time as Ron. Ron grinned as he saw the charm work, the club remaining in the air while the troll’s arm swung down. It gave him a much-needed confidence boost, which was really all he needed to be a better student.

“Leili! Dumbledore’s coming!” Jo whispered, “We need to go.”

“Just a second, I want to make sure they don’t do anything else.”

“Knock out the troll and they won’t have to.”

“Why didn’t _I_ think of that?” Leili dropped the club onto the troll’s head and stayed just long enough to see it fall. Then Jo took her hand again and they snuck off before high tailing it back to the dormitory.

Back in their room, they threw themselves onto Leili’s bed. “Those kids are going to be the death of themselves!” Leili exclaimed.

“They get into more trouble than _our_ firsties!” Jo said.

They were silent for a moment.

“I guess they’ll need some looking after, then,” Leili said, resigned.

“Consider them honorary ‘Puffs,” Jo agreed. “Why do they teach children to unlock locked doors, anyway? Do they also teach them to hot wire a broom?”

“You don’t really _need_ to hot wire a broom, you just kinda… _go_ ,” Leili responded.

“Oh, you know what I mean!” Jo huffed and Leili laughed.

“In all fairness, have you ever seen your mother lock her keys in the house or the car? A spell to unlock locked doors would come in very handy.”

“Hmph. Mebbeh,” Jo said, “I still think it’s just asking for trouble.”

“Obviously. If we didn’t learn how to unlock locked doors, they never would have gotten into trouble with that dog last night.”

“We got majorly lucky this time; can’t always depend on that,” Jo sighed.

Leili stared off into space above her bed and then slowly, a thought occurred to her. “Maybe… we _can_ …” Leili rolled off the bed and scrambled over to the bookshelf and started muttering to herself as she looked for and then grabbed the book she needed. She flipped to a page and dropped the book on her bed between herself and Jo and pointed to a passage titled, “Liquid luck”. Jo rolled over to look at the page in question,

“Does… Does that do what I think it does?” Jo asked hopefully.

“Yup.”

“ _Awesome_!”

“It’s monstrously difficult though, and takes six months to properly stew… and that’s only if it’s done right, who knows what happens if you get it wrong,” Leili explained, not to mention it was magic way beyond her 3rd year potions class.

“Well, with those three, we’re going to need all the help we can get,” Jo told her.

“Fair enough. I’ll start working on it in the morning. Honorary ‘Puffs huh?”

“Yep.”

“Well, this should be just _loads_ of fun,” Leili rolled her eyes and snapped the tome shut.


	19. Hogsmeade

Mid January 1992

Third Year

_-_

_Thump._

_  
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle._

_  
Thump._

_  
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle._

  
“Alright! I give! _What_ are you doing?” Leili cried, pulling her head out of her book after several minutes of trying to ignore the very distracting noise.

“Teaching Spike to fetch.”

“ _Why_?”

“Because once he learns fetch, ‘Kill’ is just one more command away.” Leili blinked and silence descended so the only noise was the soft thump of the ham cubes Jo was throwing and Spike’s scuttling as he chased after it. Then Leili asked,

“…Why ham cubes?”

“Why _not_ ham cubes?”  
  
“…Touché.”  
  
Later that day the girls grouped together with the rest of the students for the first trip to Hogsmeade.

“All those with permission follow me, those without, stay here,” Filch said. The students grouped together behind him and followed him into Hogsmeade Village. In the village the snow was just starting to melt, revealing the colorfully painted exterior, the terracotta color of the roof tiles.  
  
“Wow!” Jo said, her eyes wide and staring. Leili grinned, taking in the sights, her hand clasped with Jo’s. 

“Where should we start? Joke shop? Sweet shop? Tea shop? Book Shop?” Leili asked.

“Sweets, then books, then tea?” Jo proposed.

Leili looked around, trying to locate each shop.

“Sweets are this way!” she said, tugging Jo along behind her.   
  
The shop was filled to the brim with sweet things to eat, the walls and shelves were wood the color of chocolate, the lanterns casting a golden glow over everything. There were bertie botts beans, chocolate frogs, pepper imps, wriggling gummy worms, fizzing peppermint candies. The shop was crowded with kids and the girls ducked and wove through the throng, picking up boxes of candy as they did. After they found a space to compare their selections, they grabbed a few things they wanted to try and then paid for their goodies. Candy was expensive! The shop owner’s wife piled their treats into a bag and handed it to Jo. Then they were off again, ducking and dodging through the crowd and into the snow-covered street.   
  
“Now, where is the bookstore?” Leili wondered aloud.

Jo spotted it, “There!” and now it was her turn to lead. 

Where Leili was able to slip through small spaces, Jo just barreled her way through them. She kept a tight hold to Leilani’s hand and dragged her down the street, weaving into spaces she created. Leili laughed as she followed and soon they were opening the door to Tomes and Scrolls. As soon as they were inside, the smell of loved books bombarded them. 

“Hello, Ladies!” a cheerful voice called from above. “What are you looking for today? Hmm?”

“I’m not really sure, maybe something fantasy?” Leili said.

“I’ll start there, too,” Jo nodded.

“Ah, Fantasy, that’s near the back. Hop on!” A ladder on the wall began to move and the girls grabbed on. The ladder took them straight back and stopped in front of a sign. “You seem like good, smart, book caring young ladies, so I’ll trust you. Prices are marked inside the cover; just leave the coins on the desk on your way out. Enjoy!”

“Thanks!” they chorused. 

Eventually after much wandering the girls each chose two books and once again boarded the ladder. They did as asked and left the proper amount of coins on the desk and reluctantly left the warmth of the store. 

The tea shop was back the way they’d come a bit and packed with dewy eyed schoolgirls and their boyfriends. The girls walked in and took up a booth near a window. They ordered some tea and dumped the contents of their Honeydukes bag onto the table. They each chose a frog and carefully opened the boxes. The frogs hopped out and the girls, who’d had some practice at this on the train to school, cupped their hands and brought them down on top of the frogs, effectively trapping them.

“You know,” Jo said, gesturing with her frog, “I will bet you _anything_ that Hermione and that redheaded gryff, Ron, will fall head over heels for each other.”

“Oh, please, they barely tolerate each other!” Leili laughed. “He’s the reason we had to save them from the troll, you know. He made fun of her.”

I heard, but you know what, in books, this is how it happens, they hate each other and then, by the end, _snogging_.”

“Alright, I’ll bet you 5 knuts, due to be paid when?”  
  
“Let’s call it their 7th year.”

“Ok, five knuts that they won't get together by the end of their 7th year, you’re on.” 

The tea arrived and Leili dunked her frog’s head into the steaming cup. 

“Mmm, Chocolate Frog brains!” Jo said.

Leili laughed, "You're so gross."


	20. Marcus Flint

Mid to Late February 1992

Third Year

-

It was the third match of the school year and Hufflepuff was playing Slytherin. Jo had signed up to be a substitute player for Hufflepuff again and had only played in practice this year, having played once last year. But when Hufflepuff’s beater took a Bludger to the head during practice and was unable to play, Jo was called in to take his place during the game. Madame Hooch refereed and as always demanded good, clean game.

Jo was hardly able to contain her glee and it showed through the grin so wide that her lips felt like they would split. She loved Quidditch; the wind through her ponytail, the feel of the bat in her hand as she whacked an offending bludger away. It was exhilarating. The game progressed smoothly until a 4th year chaser with muscles galore spotted her and with a lascivious wiggle of his eyebrows, made a kissy face at her.

Jo grinned maliciously, raised a mocking eyebrow in return and whacked a bludger, hitting the chaser in the face and breaking his nose.  
  
Marcus Flint was never the same again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So short! I'd like to mention that Jo was /not/ trying to break Marcus' nose, no matter what their classmates think. She thought he'd dodge or block it.


	21. Just in Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place shortly after the kids see Norbert(a) off with Charlie. Inspired by the question of how Harry got the cloak back.

May 12th (midnight), May 13th, May 26th 1992

Third Year

-

Jo and Leilani were attending their astronomy class when Jo saw it out of the corner of her eye. An entire chunk of the tower floor was see-through. Students spent so much of their time looking up in this tower that they didn’t even notice that they could see right through a section of the floor. It was _the_ most discombobulating thing Jo had ever seen and this was her third year at a school where the ceiling reflected the sky and weather outside, staircases moved, had sinkhole steps or became slides when boys tried to climb them. 

“Leili,” she whispered, “look down to my right and don’t make a sound,” she instructed. Leili looked casually to where Jo had indicated and had to clench her teeth together to keep from saying something. She walked around Jo to nudge the area with her foot, the toe of her shoe slipping under the edge of what ever was causing it and vanishing as well. “I love magic,” Jo said quietly. Leili picked the thing up and discovered it was fabric, a silky fabric that felt like water in her hands.

“Feel it,” Leili whispered and Jo stroked it gently with her fingertips. 

“Wow,” she whispered, marveling at its texture. “Quick, fold it up and stick it in my bag, we can figure out what to do with it later.” Leili did as she was asked and the next day before Herbology, Jo pulled it out of her trunk and the girls sat on her bed to examine and decide what to do with it.

“Well, we can’t keep it, much as I’d love to; this thing is seriously cool,” Leili said, she was trying to avoid touching it by sitting on her hands. If she touched it, she’d want to keep it and it wasn’t hers to keep.

“It’s invisible fabric, right? I didn’t know there was such a thing,”

“It’s not just fabric, it’s a cloak. I’ve heard stories, but I never thought I’d actually _see_ one.”

“Considering they’re typically, y’know, _invisible_?” Jo said cheekily. 

“Ha-ha," she said dryly before suggesting, "We could try finding out who it belongs to and return it…”  
  
“People would be clamoring to claim it. We could turn it over to Professor Sprout,” Jo told her.

“It wouldn’t be safe enough with her. I hate to say it, but if someone found out she had it they could break in and steal it and it’d never get back to its rightful owner. Our house defenses include tapping a rhythm on the barrel and getting doused in vinegar if you do it wrong. We need someone with more pull, someone no one would _dream_ of stealing from, let alone be _able_ to steal from,”

“We need Dumbledore,” Jo finished for her.

“Yeah,” Leili agreed. The bell for the next class rang and Jo put the cloak back in the bottom of her trunk, it’d be safe with them until they could get it to Dumbledore. 

It took three weeks before the girls were able to see Dumbledore. “Ah, Miss Montgomery, Miss Akina, what can I do for you?”

“You can keep something safe,” Jo said.

“We found this, a few weeks ago now, at the top of the astronomy tower. We don’t know who it belongs to and we figured the best person to leave it with, the only person who could stand a chance at finding out who it belongs to, would be you,” Leili explained. Dumbledore looked at them over the top of his glasses before Jo reached into her bag and pulled out the Invisibility cloak. The light from the window hit it, making it shine a silvery-lavender where it had looked silvery blue in their common room. 

“Ah, you brought me an Invisibility cloak. As it happens, I do know to whom this belongs, I will see it rightfully home today. Thank you, girls,” Dumbledore said, taking the cloak from them and folding it neatly in his desk drawer. As the girls left Dumbledore took out a slip of paper and a pen and scribbled a note in his narrow, loopy handwriting, “Just in case.”


	22. A Complete Secret

June 5th, 1992

Third Year

-

“We slept through it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The most dangerous stunt of the year, and we slept through it,” Jo said in disbelief. 

“Something tells me that’s why they did it in the middle of the night,” Leilani said. Harry and his friends had, in the middle of the night with no protection, gone into the dungeons and confronted Professor Quirrell. 

“I knew there was something wrong with that teacher!” Jo said disgustedly, she’d distrusted the man from the beginning, she just hadn’t been able to pinpoint _why._

“I couldn’t figure out why he was teaching a subject he was obviously so afraid of,” Leili shrugged. The girls were on their way back from breakfast and of course the thing everyone was talking about was the stunt three Gryffindors had pulled to save a stone no one had known existed. “We’re going to have to keep a closer eye on them, aren’t we?”

“To ensure that we don’t sleep through the next opportunity they find to get themselves killed, yeah,” Jo sighed.

“Well, at least they did it at the end of exam week! Can you imagine if they’d done it on Monday? The entire school wouldn’t be able to concentrate!” Leili chirped, trying to find a bright side.

As Dumbledore would tell Harry when he woke, what happened between he and Professor Quirrell was a complete secret, so, naturally the whole school knew; at least, they thought they knew. The school couldn’t know the whole of it, that was for Harry to tell, but from what little Hermione and Ron had said to a bunch of chatty Gryffindors and what else anyone was able to scrounge up, the student body had a pretty good idea of what had transpired the night before. For the girls however, having to find out through the _rumour_ _mill_ that the honorary Hufflepuffs had nearly gotten themselves killed was not a pleasant feeling. 

So it was that with renewed vigor, and sneakier tactics, the girls solemnly vowed to keep the three Gryffindors alive for the next six years, assuming of course, that the girls themselves didn’t get killed in the process.


	23. The Slytherpuff Alliance

June 13th, 1992

Third Year

-

“How would you feel about an alliance? Between Slytherin and Hufflepuff,” Marcus Flint asked. 

It was the last Hogsmeade weekend, two days before the train came to take them home, and, after a bit of searching, he’d found Jo and Leilani at the Three Broomsticks and pulled up a chair at their table. They’d both given him funny looks when he’d sat down. He suspected they weren’t accustomed to Slytherins being nice to them, let alone sitting down and proposing an alliance. 

Leilani held out her arm and said, “Pinch me,” Jo pinched her, hard. “Ouch!” She looked back at Flint, “He’s still here.”

“I think he’s serious. Probably ought to stop talking about him as though he weren’t there,” Jo said with just a hint of admonishment, thoroughly masked by amusement.

“You think?”

“I think.”

“Ok,” Leilani stood and walked to the counter. She returned with three butterbeers and gave one to Flint, part in welcome and part in apology for being rude. Leili tried to view all the houses as equal, as the founders had wanted, but there were a few centuries of bad blood between the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs, which made it difficult to remain objective. Still, she valued fairness so she tried not to let the inherited prejudice color her judgment _too_ heavily.

“An alliance, with Slytherin?” he prompted.

“What exactly would this alliance do?” Jo asked.

“It would cut down on the bullying for one thing, you’d be free to send back wayward Slytherins, we’re generally more likely to consider doing something if it comes from another Slytherin, as opposed to, say, a Hufflepuff, so you’d be free to make requests. If there’s anything you, or your Hufflepuffs, need, you could to come to us for help. It would increase communication, that’s for sure.”

“What’s in it for you?” Jo asked. 

“You don’t believe I’m doing this for the good of both our houses?” Flint asked, an eyebrow quirked over his bottle of butterbeer.

“Not really, no,” Leili said. “I could be wrong though, it has happened before,” she joked. 

“A better name for Slytherins. Right now, most students dread the idea of being sorted into Slytherin, most people see Slytherin House as the house those with the potential to become Dark Wizards go. Just because we value cunning and ambition, doesn't mean we’re all evil. Slytherin is not well favoured. What’s in it for me is that the name of a proud house stops getting dragged through the mud.”

“With intentions like that, you could almost have been a Hufflepuff,” Leili said in some wonder. 

Flint shot her a look that said he was quite happy as a snake, Thankyouverymuch.

“Do you have a name for this alliance?” Jo asked. 

Flint took this as a sign that they were in, so he told them what he’d thought to call it, “The SlytherPuff Alliance.”


	24. Lockhart's Quiz

September 8th, 1992

Fourth Year

\--

“It’s scary how idiotic this man is.” Leili muttered as Lockhart tutted his students for not knowing the answers to his four paged, 60 questioned “Little quiz”. 

“Only Miss Leelani Akihna got most of the questions correct! Well done, Miss Akihna! 5 points to Hufflepuff. Though you did forget my ultimate birthday gift would be peace between magic and no-magic folk, though I wouldn’t mind a lifetime subscription of Wizard’s sculpting hair gel bottles.” He smiled that cheesy, slimy smile of his and half the girls in the room swooned.

Leili cringed when he mispronounced her name and looked at Jo who was, like everyone else, staring at her in disbelief. Loosing her hair from its ponytail to cover her face and thus lessen the effect of the stares, she mouthed, “I’ll explain later”. 

After class Leilani took Jo aside and explained, “I got bored!”

“So you read his books?”

“I had finished all my other books and I was really, _really_ bored. Yes, I read the books, but listen, he’s an idiot; he said he used the Homorphus charm to cure a werewolf, his spell for getting rid of pixies doesn’t exist; his books are _pure fiction_. He’s a fraud! And really, as far as fiction stories go, I’ve read better.”

Silence.

“You read his books?!”

“ _Jo_!”


	25. Badger Turf

Late September, 1992

Fourth Year

-

Draco Malfoy had been tormenting a second year Hufflepuff when Jo and Leilani had come up behind him. He turned around to yell at whomever it was that had interrupted his fun, only to find himself looking up into the faces of two unhappy Hufflepuff girls. 

“What’s a _snake_ doing in _badger_ territory?” Jo asked, raising an eyebrow as Draco screwed his face into an unbecoming sneer. Before he had a chance to retort hotly, Jo had rolled her eyes and waved him off with a “Talk to Flint."

“So you pissed off Jo and Leilani then?” Marcus said, it wasn’t much of a question; he just wanted to hear the kid say it. 

Draco’s face twisted, “What was _their_ problem?”

“You were their problem, Malfoy. You’re lucky they let you off with a warning. Just stick to antagonizing Gryffs, alright? Stay out of Badger turf.”

“Why should I?”

“Slytherin and Hufflepuff have a truce. An Alliance. It goes back to the days of the Founding, or very nearly” he said smoothly, adjusting the truth to suit his needs.

“Why would we want an alliance with those mudbloods?” Draco sneered.

“Call Jo or Leiliani a ‘Mudblood’ to their faces and you’ll find out. I’m not saying you have to like them or be nice to them, by all means, torment their students all you want. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when they destroy you.”


	26. Luna

Mid-October, 1992

Fourth Year

\--

The school hustled and bustled, students scampering from one class to another. In a few weeks the buzz that filled the school would be thrown up a notch. But until then, everything was as idyllic as school could be. So when Jo stumbled across a dreamy voiced blonde, she took her back to the Hufflepuff common room, proclaiming, “Leili! Look what I found! I found a firstie!”

“Well, that shouldn’t be hard, they’re all over the place,” Leili said dryly, not looking up from her book.

“Can we keep her?”

“Jo, Firsities are not wandering puppies to be adopted, they’re students. We can’t just keep them every time we find a cute one!” The little Ravenclaw was cute, if a tad unusual. Jo looked at Leili with raised eyebrows.

“I’ll remember that next time you see a cute, fuzzy, oh-so-adorable magical animal and fold your hands in front of your chest and go ‘Oh _please_ , can we keep it?’” Jo said, pitching her voice higher and widening her eyes to do the best imitation of her best friend.

“I do _not_ sound like that,” Leili said with a repressed grin, before giving in and asking, “Who is she?”

“Her name is Luna and she says I have Nargles in my hair!”

“I… see…” Leilani looked from Jo to the 11-year old girl with wacky glasses perched in her blonde hair and decided _not_ to ask what the heck Nargles were, “Well, then we should wash it! It hasn’t been _that_ long since your last bath, has it?” Leili teased, eyeing the mess of brown hair pulled back into an even messier bun. 

Jo flopped next to Leili and shoved her shoulder in good-natured retaliation. Luna stayed with the girls during most of her free time henceforth and due to the cheerful bounce in her step was nicknamed Bunny. 


	27. A Proper Cuppa

November 9th, 1992

Fourth year  
\--  
  


It had been a stressful week. Between Mrs. Norris and little Colin Creevey being attacked, which had the entire school freaking out, not to mention end of term exams coming up; Leili had a headache and she was grumpy. The entire castle was on edge and it was beginning to drive her nuts. So, on their way back from Magical Creatures class Leili dragged Jo into the kitchen. “You find chocolate, preferably frog-shaped.”

“Got it!” Jo said, speeding off towards the desert section of the kitchen where she got down on her knees and begged chocolate off of the elves. They were so happy to have someone to serve, they tripped over themselves trying to oblige.

While Jo got the Chocolate, Leili found a small kettle and two trivets. Leaving the kitchen the girls hurried back to their dorm where, careful not to set the floor on fire, Leili set about making tea. She set a protective enchantment down over the area before setting a small fire beneath one trivet. She filled the kettle with water, with a quick _aguamenti_ and set it atop the fire. She stood up and admired her handiwork, Jo was grinning at her fiendishly.

“If someone comes in and doesn’t look down, they’ll probably trip over that, y’know.” Leili grumbled an agreeing noise and looked around the room. Her eyes lit on the book Jo held out to her and grinned wickedly. She opened it up to the middle and set it down, upright, to one side of the kettle, she did the same with every book Jo handed her and pretty soon a circle of smiling, winking, strutting and posturing Lockharts enclosed the kettle.

Jo held out her hand and Leili gave it a quick slap before opening up her trunk and rummaging through it. She tossed a bag of whole-leaf green tea up to Jo and continued rummaging before emerging with two hatboxes. She set them down side by side gently on her bed and lifted their lids. Her grandmother was a tea enthusiast and had sent her a white teapot that looked as though it had been used during a Holi festival, with it she had sent matching tea cups and saucers, each a different color. Suddenly the silence was split by a scream and each Lockhart in the barrier was startled out of their frames.

“ _Silencio_ ,” Jo cast, by the time she got over to the kettle with Leili’s teapot, four people came bursting through the door. 

“We heard a scream,” one Hufflepuff said, slightly out of breath.

Leili pointed and Jo lifted, “Kettle,” they said.


	28. Mama Bear and Little Bird

November 14th, 1992

Fourth Year

-

Five days after little Colin Creevey was attacked Luna sat down across from the girls at a table in the Great Hall. “Hello Mama Bear, Hello Little Bird,” She said.

“Hey, Bunny,” Jo said, not looking up from the page she was scribbling on.

“What’s up, Luna?”

“I thought you might be interested in these,” she said pulling several scrolls from her bag and laying them on the table. “I was in the restricted section for a question I had about Defense against the Dark Arts and I found these, I wasn’t allowed to check any of them out so I copied what I thought you might like.”

This wasn’t exactly unusual, amid her usual oddness about blubbering humdingers and crumple horned snorkaks—animals the girls were fairly certain didn’t exist but didn’t want to pop her bubble of belief—Luna was one of the cleverest people the girls had ever met. She had guessed after only two weeks what the girls were up to—protecting Harry—and instead of going to a teacher with the information, she simply pointed out flaws in their plans and came up with the occasional clever idea. 

“Thanks Luna, let’s see what all you found for us,” Leili said, picking up a scroll the Luna had specifically nudged in her direction. Luna watched as Leili’s eyes zipped over the scroll before flicking up to her, “Are you sure?” Luna smiled and pushed the other scrolls towards her older Hufflepuff friends. Leili handed Jo the scroll she’d been reading and pulled another from the pile. “We’ll have to register, there’s no reason for us not to,” she said as she scanned the page.

“Luna, you are a _genius_ ,” Jo said before turning to Leili. “I told you keeping her around would come in handy.” Leili rolled her eyes at Jo with a smile.

“Did you say you needed help with Defense Against?” Leili asked while Jo read.

“Not anymore, I found my answer.”

“Ok, now I really want to try this.” Jo said after reaching the end of the carefully copied out scroll.

“We can at least start planning, though we probably won’t be able to do anything for a while. It’s complicated and it’s gonna take a while.”

“Complicated is my middle name!”

“And Cautious is mine. We’ve got to be careful with this, can’t have it go wrong. …I think Luna should be with us when we start trying it, that way if something does go wrong she can get help.”

“Agreed. Bunny, what say you?” Jo asked turning to look at Luna.

“Whenever you’re ready!” she agreed with a grin. 

It would take a month of sheer planning and then months of trial and error in between classes, they were coming up on their O.W.L’s in a year and their teachers were swamping them in homework. They even considered going to Professor McGonagall for help but they were unsure that she _would_ help them. 

Once summer came, the girls would continue their attempts, though practicing only at Leili’s house with her dad standing watch in case of incident. It was really the only place they could practice safely without getting notices of illegal magic use. 

Aloiki wouldn’t like what the girls were attempting, working at St. Mungo’s had given him an up close account of what happened when spells like this went wrong. He could forbid them from doing it and he knew that they might stop for the summer but they’d just start right up again at school and he wouldn’t know. Still, he would reason, at least with them under his supervision he couldn’t complain that they were being smart about it; he would be ready in case of any accidents with a lecture and a reversal spell, just in case.


	29. Parselmouth

December 17th, 1992

Fourth Year

\--

“ _Serpensortia_!” Draco cried. Harry froze, a snake slithering lazily towards him. Their instructions had been to disarm only, what was he supposed to do with a snake? Before he had time to make up his mind, Lockhart strutted past him.

With a flick of his wand, Lockhart sent the snake flying into the air and then crashing to the floor. With an angry hiss, the snake turned towards a young Hufflepuff near the table. The snake opened its mouth wide, ready to chomp down on Justin when all of a sudden there was a low hissing coming from the left of the serpent. The snake stopped and turned towards Harry who began hissing again. 

The snake blinked and Snape came up behind it, wand out, “ _Vipera Evanesca_.”

Justin looked at Harry, who was feeling a bit proud of himself for having called off the snake before it attacked anyone. “What are you playing at?” Justin asked terrified, before running from the hall. 

After that, Snape cancelled the duelling club. It was, all in all, an utter failure.

The girls followed Justin from the hall, trying to reason with him, “C’mon Justin! I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm! Didn’t you see his face when you yelled at him?”

“No! I was busy getting as far away from Potter as possible!” Justin responded, fear clouding his ability to see Jo’s logic.

“He was confused. Didn’t you see him when Malfoy set the snake on him? He didn’t know what to do with it. Then that idiot of a teacher had to go and make it mad, if Lockhart had only let Snape handle it, but _no,_ instead he flung it 30 feet in the air so he wouldn’t look incompetent. Idiot.” Leili tried to explain, only to get sidetracked by Lockhart’s stupidity.

Jo took over, “If Harry was really such a bad kid don’t you think that he would have sent the snake against someone he actually doesn’t like? Like, _Malfoy_ , the one who conjured it in the first place?”

“I… well-I-well-I-I-I don’t know! All I know is that snake came towards me and Potter, Potter _hissed_ at it and it looked at him like it was waiting for instructions!”

“Yes, it turned to look at him and it waited; it _waited_. If Harry was evil, don’t you think he’d have just told the snake to attack? Not to await further instructions?” 

Justin spluttered before he walked speedily away from the girls, who were only trying to help.

Jo and Leili stopped, “Harry can talk to snakes. You know anything about that?” Jo asked.

“No, and judging by the look on his face when Justin yelled at him, he doesn’t either.”


	30. Attack!

December 18th, 1992

Fourth Year

\--

In the Library a group of Hufflepuff second years were saying nasty things about Harry. Harry overheard them and stormed out, frustrated and hurt and just a teeny bit scared. Leili came up behind the second years and said, “ _You_ are giving all ‘Puffs a bad name!”

“But Potter’s been behind the attacks! You’d better stay away from him!” Ernie told her solemnly, rubbing the back of his head.

“Harry Potter, attacking students? How dumb can you get?” Jo snorted as she came to stand beside Leilani.

“But it all makes sense! Justin told him he was muggle born and Potter had the snake attack him, Potter had a run in with Filch and then Filch’s cat got attacked, that little first year, Creevey, was annoying Potter at the Quidditch match, taking pictures of him and stuff, and then _he_ gets attacked _and_ Potter’s a Parselmouth!”

“None of that means anything!” Leili told them, exasperated. “First off, the snake didn’t touch Justin, Harry stopped it from attacking Justin, there’s a difference there. As for Mrs. Norris, _my_ cat, Morgan got into a tussle with her that day, do you think I attacked her, hung her by her tail and wrote threatening messages on the wall? No, you don’t, because you’re not stupid, even if you are acting like it. Colin was annoying Harry the day before, yes, but honestly, who wants pictures of your best friend puking up slugs? C’mon, gross.”

“In the muggle world we have a sort-of saying, innocent until proven guilty; what you have is a whole lot of coincidence.” Jo told them, hoping this would settle it.

“But Leilani always says, ‘once is chance, twice is coincidence and three times is a conspiracy’!” Hannah pointed out and Leilani groaned, she did in fact say that.

“Nice to know they listen to us.” Jo muttered. Jo was about to open her mouth to say something else when suddenly Peeves' shout interrupted her thought.

“ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATAAAACK!” Before Peeves had even finished, Ernie was leaping up out of the chair and running for the door.

“Ah, stupid cotton pickin' Peeves!” Leili muttered, feeling somewhere between whacking him repeatedly with her heaviest book and pulling her hair out. She stopped and looked at Hannah, “ _Don't_ repeat that.” Hannah blinked as Leili took off after Jo who'd sped off after Ernie. Leili skidded around the corner as a loud bang went off and all the noise she'd heard, as she took the stairs two at a time, quieted. 

Ernie pointed at Harry and panting said, _“Caught in the act!”_ for Harry was standing over a petrified Justin Finch-Fletchley.

“That will do, Macmillan!” Professor McGonagall snapped. Jo whacked him upside the head for Leilani, Peeves was grinning wickedly and singing one of his taunting little songs. “That is _enough,_ Peeves!” McGonagall barked at the poltergeist, who, tongue out at Harry, zoomed away backwards. 

Ernie followed as Professors Flitwick and Sinistra carried Justin away to the infirmary while Professor McGonagall gave the girls a pair of large fans and instructions to float Nearly-Headless Nick to the infirmary. 

“I wonder how ridiculous this looks…” Leili thought aloud as they fanned Nick down the corridors and up the stairs. 

Jo answered simply, “Pretty ridiculous.” Three days later the girls were on the train home for Christmas, Leili would find that the Lucky potion she’d left stewing at home had gone wrong. Positive she’d followed the instructions she would wash out the cauldron and start over, making absolutely sure she followed the instructions perfectly.


	31. Banished, banished, banished!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a piece of fluff I wrote after watching The Great Race.

Late January, 1992

Fourth Year

-

Jo sat sulking in the common room and a younger ‘Puff noticed her unusual behavior. “Hey, Jo? What’s the matter?” 

Jo didn’t even turn to look at the girl as she answered, “Leili banished me from the dormitory.”

The girl frowned, that wasn’t like Leilani, “Why?”

“For messing up her potion.” Jo pouted before adding loud enough for Leilani to hear, “ _Apparently_ the paprika in my lunch reacted badly with the dragon’s blood in the potion.”

“It was the _doxy wings_!” Leili yelled back, irritation coloring her tone.

“What kind of potion is she making that’s _that_ sensitive?”

“Damned if _I_ know!” Jo replied indignantly. 

A minute later, Leili appeared in the doorway, using a work rag to remove the potion from her hands, much like a mechanic would remove oil and grease. Her hair was tied back into a messy bun and there was a pea-soup colored spot on her jaw to match the splotches on her shirt and jeans.

“Woah! What happened, Leilani?” The younger ‘Puff asked.

“Exactly what Jo said; apparently, paprika and Doxy wings don’t mix,” Leili said as she rubbed at her jaw, trying to scrub away the spot she’d missed. Jo sighed and crossed the room, snatching the rag out of Leili’s hands and forcing the smaller brunette’s head still so _she_ could remove the spot.

“Want me to help clean up?” Jo asked softly.

“It’s done, besides, I _banished_ you,” Leili teased with a smile.

“Meanie.”

“Dummy.”


	32. Kindling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short and silly!

Valentine’s day, 1993

Fourth Year

\-- 

When Jo and Leilani walked groggily into the great hall that morning they were stunned find the hall done over in pink. Lots and lots of _pink,_ pink flowers, confetti, pink _everything_. It was instantly sobering and at the same time, frightening. Banners had been hung with red hearts on pink backgrounds; even Lockhart wore bright pink robes.

“I am _never_ wearing pink again,” Leili vowed. They took their seats for breakfast and found a signed card of Lockhart grinning at them, “Oh, wow! A signed photograph of Professor Lockhart, just what I’ve _always_ wanted!” she mocked over enthusiastically.

“Oh, goodie, _kindling_ ,” Jo said dryly.


	33. Spike

Early March, 1993

Fourth Year

\--

“It’s not going to work,” Leili said as Jo prepared to walk out of their dorm. 

“Hush, you’ll jinx it. Knock on wood.” Both girls, in the otherwise empty dorm, reached over and rapped their knuckles on the nearest wooden thing.

“See you in a bit, then,” Leili said looking up from her book to watch Jo walk out the door with her Monster Book of Monsters trailing behind her on a leash. Jo and Spike walked up the stairs; well, Jo walked, Spike thumped loudly from step to step. The girl and her book made their way casually through the common room, past Professor Sprout’s desk. 

Professor Sprout had vetoed an actual office, choosing instead to keep a desk in the Hufflepuff common room so she could do her work near her students; she liked to keep an eye on them. Hufflepuffs weren’t typically prone to bone headed bravery like Gryffindors, nor were they typically as sneaky about dodging rules like Slytherins, but they had their moments.

As Jo and Spike walked past her, Professor Sprout looked up and raised an eyebrow, watching the pair make their way to the door. She leaned back in her chair and called, “Jocelyn.”

Jo stopped.

“What are you doing?”

Turning to look at her Head of House Jo grinned beseechingly, “Taking Spike for a walk…” Professor Sprout said nothing, simply giving her a long-suffering look over the top of her glasses and a thumb jab back in the direction Jo had come. “C’mon, Spike,” Jo sighed and trudged her way back to Leili.

Jo didn’t see it but Professor Sprout was actually trying not to laugh as she shook her head and watched the girl go. Jocelyn and Leilani provided her with a vast amount of entertainment with their antics. She loved all her students, but Jo and Leili were two of her favourites. They were so inexplicably silly sometimes, like taking a book for a walk or knitting with their wands, or making _tea_ on the _floor_.

Leili looked up when she heard the door close. There stood a downcast Jo unhooking Spike from his leash, “Didn’t work?” Leili asked. Jo gave her a dirty look and Leili grinned, “Told you so.”


	34. Magic and Mandrakes

March 15th \- 28th 1993

Fourth Year

\--

Leili and Jo stood around the tables in green house three, they were helping with the mandrakes, along with the rest of their house. “Earmuffs on! Flaps down tight!” Professor Sprout said, patting her earmuffs tight around her ears.

“Professor Sprout? Wouldn’t it be easier on our ears if we used a silencing charm?” Leili asked.

Professor Sprout smiled at her, “I need you to be able to hear me, which you won’t if I use a silencing charm. Now--”

“What if we dug them up gently? Instead of yanking them out of the ground by their branches?” Jo asked.

“ _Now_ ,” Professor Sprout said to cut off any more interruptions, “earmuffs on and flaps down tight! Ready? Remember: Grasp them tight and pull straight up. 1, 2, 3,” _Yank._ Mandrakes were quickly removed from their pots and examined before being deposited into bigger pots and covered in fresh, warm dirt. 

No one had been petrified since before winter break, but everyone was still at a loss as to what was causing it. For now, the Mandrakes were coming along nicely; they had recently thrown a party in the green house, their acne was clearing up and they would be ready for harvesting once they began to move into each other’s pots.

To appease Leili’s parents, Jo and Leilani went home for Easter break; they celebrated Leili’s 15th birthday, Jo gave her a silver charm bracelet, her parents gave her a bookbag—patterned with white lightning striking across a purple sky—and Kanani had filled it with books, because what book bag would be complete without half a dozen good (heavy) books? 

It was a nice break, save for Leili’s parents worried nagging over the state of things at the school. At night the girls gossiped about boys. Jo refused to admit to anything between her and Marcus Flint and Leili _swore_ there was nobody she had _her_ eye on.

In the back of her mind Jo thought about telling Leili her suspicions, that there was a boy who liked her. She had no proof, just what she’d seen. She’d noticed it last year. The hints were subtle, but they were there. Leili hadn’t picked up on them though. Jo considered saying something; maybe if she said something, it would move things along faster. 

_But_ , if she said something then Leili would fret over it; a boy _liked_ her, but what if she didn’t feel the same way? She’d worry about how he’d take the rejection. In the end, Jo decided not to tell her. If Leili was happy not knowing, then she was happy and in the end that’s all Jo really cared about. 

Though she did wish the boy would hurry up about it, you’d think that being in Gryffindor he’d have the nerve to say something by now. 


	35. Morgan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because you can't tell me these kids didn't run harmless experiments on their pets. I mean Ron turned Scabbers into a teacup in class.

April 1993

Fourth Year  
\--

It was the week after the Easter holiday and Leili was practicing a camouflage spell, one that would create near invisibility. It could come in handy for stalking the Gryffindor trio. Jo had, perhaps wisely, opted out of the experiment part, despite Leili’s assurances that nothing would happen. Leili’s cat Morgan however, had no such qualms about being used for experimental spell work. She just sat there, washing her ears and curling her tail back and forth. 

“I’m really not entirely happy about experimenting on my cat, y’know.”

“Oh, but you’re ok with experimenting on me?” Jo snarked.

“You can defend yourself, she can’t.”

“Oh please, she’s a cat, have you _seen_ her claws? She’s hardly defenseless. Besides, you said yourself, ‘nothing is going to happen’.” Leili made an indecisive noise. 

“You’re ok with me doing this, Mor?” Morgan purred loudly. “I guess that’s a yes. Ok, here goes nothing,” Leili reached her wand out and tapped Morgan between the ears and carefully recited the incantation for the Disillusionment charm. She’d been practicing since summer; She’d found the spell in one of Kanani’s textbooks.

For a moment, nothing happened. Morgan just shook her head like someone had blown in her ear, and then a ripple went over her fur bringing with it near perfect invisibility. It wasn’t absolute, you could just barely see Morgan’s outline; it was more obvious when she moved. “Nicely done, Leili!” Jo said. “If I didn’t know she was there, I’m not sure I’d know she was there.” Leili reached forward to scratch Morgan behind the ears, only to have her hand meet nothing but air. She waved her hand over where the cat _should_ be. Nothing.

“Mor? Morgan? Where d’you go, kitten?” Wave, wave, nothing. No cat. “Uh-oh. Jo, she’s gone. I think I worked that spell a little bit too well.” In all fairness to Leilani, cats could practically turn invisible without the help of magic. 

“ _Lumos_ ,” Jo cast, her wand tip flaring to life. She waved her wand in widening circles around the last place they had seen Morgan. No shadows. She was gone. Leili scrambled from the room.

“MORGAN! Here, kitty! Where are you, kitty? C’mon, where are you? Where aaare you?”

“We need catnip.”

“With my luck it’ll attract every cat in the castle except mine,” Leili groused.

Over the next week and a half—it took them three days to get some catnip seeds, and another week to grow the stupid plant—reports came in from all over the castle of mysterious trippings, shredded curtains, phantom purring and invisible paws attacking feet beneath bed covers. 

When at last the catnip was ready, the girls placed the pot in the hallway outside the Hufflepuff barrels and sure enough in no time at all, cats flocked to it, but not Morgan. Their next step was to put up lost cat posters around the castle—they carefully didn’t mention that she was an invisible cat.

At the end of the week, no one had come forward with Morgan or information as to her whereabouts. The girls had removed the catnip after a day, planting it outside. When Morgan had been missing for a full three weeks and Leili was beginning to despair of ever getting her cat back, Professor McGonagall appeared behind her on feet as silent as any cat’s. “Miss Akina,” she said. 

Leili turned around and saw the normally stern-looking Professor smiling with a cat tucked under her chin, purring loudly.

“ _Morgan!_ ” she cried, reaching for her cat. “Where have you been?! I’ve been worried about you!” Morgan butted Leili’s cheek with her head and gave a catty meow. “Thank you, Professor!”

“You have a good cat there, Miss Akina; I suggest you not Disillusion her anymore.” 

“Yes, Professor, I mean, no professor!” Leili laughed, hugging Morgan tightly, scratching her behind one ear. “I mean, thank you, Professor.” Professor McGonagall gave her a nod and swept away. 

“Bad Cat,” Leili whispered. Morgan just purred louder.


	36. Not So ‘Itsy Bitsy’ Spiders

May 8th -24th, 1993

Fourth Year

-

The fourth attack came out of nowhere. The previous attack had happened 6 months earlier, on December 18th. After a month with no attacks, people began to relax, two months, they stopped looking over their shoulders, after six months, life was almost normal at the school… almost. And then Hermione Granger and Penelope Clearwater were found petrified in the hallway near the library. 

The school was thrown into instant chaos, those who had relaxed were on their guard again and those who had never truly stopped looking over their shoulders were more frightened than ever. Both Jo and Leilani were wary, as neither were pure blood. Leili’s parents kept threatening to yank their daughters out of school and the only reason Jo was still in school was because she had kept the attacks out of her letters home and her mom didn’t receive any of the wizarding newspapers. The Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff match was cancelled; Dumbledore was removed as headmaster and Hagrid taken to Azkaban

Two weeks later, Jo and Leilani were following Ron and Harry through the halls—without the benefit of Lucky Potion as Leili had received a letter from her mother that morning saying it had gone wrong again, much to the girls’ dismay—when they heard the boys discover a trail of quickly fleeing spiders, “Follow the spiders, why couldn’t it be follow the butterflies?” Ron moaned as he and Harry snuck out.

“I’m with Ron on this one, I _hate_ spiders,” Jo said venomously. 

Leili shuddered, “I can handle _one_ small one but not a whole colony of the things. Eugh!” She rubbed her arms vigorously to rid them of the rapidly appearing goosebumps. “Do we follow them?” she asked, though she had a hunch she already knew the answer.

“I don’t see that we have a lot of choice, you know what kind of pets Hagrid keeps, we have no idea what they’re going to find in that forest, or that they’ll come out alive.”

“Whatever it is, it won’t be pretty.” Leili drew her wand and with a smart rap on Jo’s head cast a Disillusionment charm, thus turning her into a human chameleon. She twirled her wand around herself, casting the same spell. It was nothing like an invisibility cloak and wouldn’t hold up under intense scrutiny (unless you were a cat), but hopefully it would keep them unnoticed. She sighed, “Sneaking after them could be _so_ much easier if we had animagus forms or liquid luck.”

“What’s up with that potion, anyway?” Jo asked as they followed the boys following the spiders into the forbidden forest.

“I can’t get the ingredients.”

“Why not?”

“The ones that are sold legally are so expensive it would cost me a year’s allowance to buy them once. Illegally, it’s about a hundred times worse.”

“Yikes.” 

Eventually they stopped in a hollow in the forest, where an elephant-sized spider stepped into the light. This was Hagrid’s former pet Acromantula, Aragog. Just looking at the thing gave the girls the heebie jeebies and the effect on Ron was about 10 times worse. 

“If you’re not the monster, then what killed that girl 50 years ago?” Fang started growling a warning but was ignored.

“We do not speak its name! It is an ancient beast we spiders fear above all others,” Aragog snapped. Ron was tugging impatiently on Harry’s sleeve,

“Harry…” he said, in a half whisper, half whine. Harry shushed him.

“Have you seen it?”

“I never saw any part of the castle except for the box Hagrid kept me in.”

Jo sarcastically and silently wondered what exactly Hagrid would have done with the now elephant-sized spider when it got too big for the box. 

“The girl was found in a bathroom and when I was accused, Hagrid brought me here, where I have made my home.”

“ _Harry…!_ ” Ron said, obviously greatly distressed and, honestly, who could blame him? Large spiders, presumably Aragog’s children, were descending from the trees on ropes of spider silk.

“What?” Ron pointed up and Harry looked and then looked back at Aragog taking a few hurried steps back, “Well, thank you, this has been helpful. We’ll just be going now.”

“Oh, I think not. My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid, on my command, but I can’t deny them fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into our domain. Goodbye, friends of Hagrid.” Harry and Ron began back pedaling even faster now, but they were on two legs on unfamiliar terrain, no match for the colony of spiders on eight legs who knew every inch of the forest floor. Before anyone had a chance to utter a spell, bright headlights came roaring around the corner. 

The Flying Ford Anglia the boys had taken to school at the beginning of the year came to the rescue. The horn honked angrily, the tires spun wildly and the engine growled menacingly. It rammed itself into the attacking spiders and flung its doors and trunk open to allow the duo that was really a quartet and Fang to jump inside, before hitting reverse and escaping the spiders through a path the car obviously knew quite well. 10 minutes later the car stopped so abruptly that the front seat passengers were nearly thrown through the windshield and the passengers in the trunk were slammed into the back of the back seat and into each other. The girls heard Fang—if the sound of toenails on glass were any indication—try to scrabble out through the window. 

They heard the doors open and saw the trunk lid pop. Very carefully the girls slid out of the trunk through the barest of openings and slinked out of the way trying to make as little sound as possible. Harry gave the car a grateful pat on the hood and when Ron regained the use of his legs the four of them, minus Fang who had run off home with his tail tucked firmly between his legs, made their way out of the last few feet of forest.

“Follow the spiders, follow the spiders, I’m never going to forgive Hagrid, what the _bloody_ hell was he thinking?” Ron whined.

“That Aragog would be useful, and I bet he never thought Aragog would hurt friends of his,” Harry answered, defending Hagrid. 

“What was the point in sending us in there? What have we learned? I’d like to know!”

“We learned that Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets, he’s innocent.” 

Ron gave a loud, derisive snort. Evidently, hatching Aragog out of a cupboard wasn't his idea of innocence. The girls saw the boys safely inside the castle before seeking out their own beds.

“The next opportunity I have to squish a spider with my shoe, I’m taking it!” Leilani said once the boys were out of earshot.

“Why waste a _perfectly_ good shoe on a spider? I’m opting for a sledge hammer!” Jo shuddered. 


	37.  The Second Message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is one of those chapters that I borrowed heavily from the book. I try not to do it too often and when I do I always try to put some sort of spin on it or paraphrase where I can or trim it down so I'm changing /something/.

May 29th, 1993

Fourth Year

-

There was writing on the wall again. Jo knew it. She knew it half a second before Interim Headmistress McGonagall ordered all students back the their dormitories. Leili barely had time to reflect that since Harry had come to the school, she and Jo had done a lot of rule breaking before Jo asked her to recast the Disillusionment charm. 

“There’s blood on the wall again,” was all the explanation Jo needed to give, there was no time for her to examine this knowledge or the surety with which she knew it. Leilani cast the charm and they fought the flow of traffic to where the teachers had gathered.

“Who is it? Which student has been taken?” Madam Hooch asked; she’d sunk to the floor like putty in a microwave upon the discovery of a missing student.

“Ginny Weasley,” Interim Headmistress McGonagall said, her voice sad and devoid of any hope that the little girl was still alive. Somewhere down the hall a door slammed open and Lockhart came beaming in.

“So sorry, dozed off, what’ve I missed?” he said genially. Everyone looked at him with hatred on their faces. 

Professor Snape stepped forward saying, “Just the man; the very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last.” A smile twisted on Snape’s face as Lockhart blanched. 

The teachers _kindly_ reminded him of all the things he’d told them: that he’d known where the entrance lay, that he’d wished he’d had a crack at the beast before Hagrid had been arrested, that he knew what the dreaded creature inside truly was, that the whole affair had been bungled and that he should’ve been given free reign from the start, forcing the blonde buffoon to stutter.

“We’ll leave it you, Gilderoy, free reign at last.”

“V-very well then, I’ll—I’ll just b-be in my office getting re-re-ready, then.” With that he left the room, faster than you could say ‘lickedy split’. 

“Well that gets him out from under our feet.” McGonagall continued. “The Heads of Houses should inform their students of what’s happened and that the Hogwarts Express will be arriving to take them home tomorrow. The rest of you, please make sure no students have been left out of their dormitories.”

As the teachers rose and left one by one, the girls took their cue to get back to their house before Professor Sprout—at least that was Leili’s plan. Jo had a different idea. The professors weren’t going to do anything so _they_ would.

They didn’t know that Harry and Ron were just around the corner in the staff room, though they later suspected they should have guessed. 

“What do you _expect_ him to _do,_ Jo?” Leili asked as they snuck along the wall. Lockhart was an A-class _idiot_ , they’d have better luck hitting the library and trying to figure out what they were up against and telling literally _anybody else_.

“I don’t know!” Jo responded, frustrated. She was frustrated with the situation, she was frustrated with Leilani, she was frustrated with the teachers, she was just all around _frustrated_ and it was high time they did something about it. “But it’s better than just _sitting_ here doing _nothing;_ that girl is _dying_! Don’t tell me you’re okay with that!”

“ _No_! Of course not! But—! But how can _we_ do anything? We don’t know _where_ the monster is, we don’t even know _what_ it is!” 

They hurried after Lockhart, only to find Harry and Ron had beaten them there and Lockhart was threatening to Obliviate them. They lurked just behind the door, listening, ready to fling it open and rescue the boys if they needed to.

“Awfully sorry, boys, but I’ll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can’t have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I’d never sell another book—”

Everyone reached for their wands but Harry beat them all to it. Lockhart had barely raised his when Harry bellowed, “Expelliarmus!”

Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air. Ron caught it and flung it out the open window.

“Shouldn’t have let Professor Snape teach us that one,” said Harry furiously, kicking Lockhart’s trunk aside. Lockhart was looking up at him, feeble and small. Harry was still pointing his wand at him and by now everyone else had done the same.

“What d’you want _me_ to do?” said Lockhart weakly. “I don’t know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There’s nothing I can do.”

“You’re in luck,” said Harry, forcing Lockhart to his feet at wand point. “We think we know where it is. And what’s inside it. Let’s go.”

Jo jabbed Leili in the arm as if to say, “See! This _was_ a good idea!”

Leili smacked her hand away, “How was _I_ supposed to know that?!”


	38. Into the Chamber

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like last chapter I leaned heavily on the chapter in the book.

May 29th, 1993

Fourth Year

\--

The boys marched Lockhart down to the third floor girls bathroom to visit Myrtle, “Oh, it’s you,” she said sourly when she saw Harry. “What do you want this time?”

“To ask you how you died,” said Harry.

Myrtle’s whole attitude did a 180, she looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question. “Ooooh, it was dreadful,” she said with relish. “It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well! I’d hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. 

“The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny, a kind of a different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to _go away_ , and then I died.” Myrtle’s face shone, she almost looked alive again.

“How?” Harry asked.

“No idea,” said Myrtle in hushed tones. “I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away...” She gazed dreamily at Harry. “And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she’d ever laughed at my glasses.”

“Where exactly did you see the eyes?” said Harry.

“Over there,” Myrtle pointed at the sinks, “Somewhere.”

Harry examined the sinks closely. “This one,” he said, stopped in from to of a sink with a small snake engraved in the faucet. He squinted at it and turned his head to try and imagine it alive, then, he hissed at it.

Skulking behind Harry and Ron, the girls watched as one sink slid forward and the boys pushed Lockhart forward before they jumped into what had been a hidden tunnel. Seeing no other option but to follow, the girls launched themselves after them. The tunnel went on for miles, twisting and turning until finally it spit them out in a stone room covered in the bones of small animals. Beyond it was darkness, more tunnel.

The girls edged ahead of Harry and Ron sticking to the shadows so they mightn’t be seen, they were still disillusioned, but that didn’t mean they were taking unnecessary risks. Suddenly there was a sound behind them, Lockhart had collapsed, the coward. 

“Get up,” Ron ordered, pointing his poorly repaired wand and him. Lockhart gathered his feet under him and _launched_ himself at Ron, snatching away his wand. 

“The adventure ends _here_ , boys!” he said. “I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body—say good-bye to your memories!” He raised Ron’s Spellotaped wand high over his head and cried, “ _Obliviate_!” It backfired. 

Literally and rather explosively. 

The shock wave forced Harry and the girls further into the chamber while blocking the only exit out, trapping Ron and Lockhart.

“Ron! Ron, are you okay?”

Ron coughed, “Yeah, he’s not though, the git; He got blasted by the wand. What now?”

Harry looked at the rocks, he’d never tried to move anything so large before, there were cracks in the other walls too; what if trying brought the whole tunnel down on them? “Wait here, I’ll try and find Ginny. If I’m not back in an hour…”

“I’ll try and shift some of this rock so you can get back through,” Ron was not tolerating the idea of losing his best friend and his little sister in the same night.

Harry stepped forward and Ron stayed behind with the Obliviated Lockhart. The girls carefully picked their way through the bones trying not to create enough noise to be noticed. They followed a long and dimly lit tunnel. It turned this way and that way until it stopped at a great stone lock. 

Thinking of Hermione, Harry raised his wand and cast—without much hope of it working, “ _Alohomora_.” Predictably, it didn’t work. So Harry gritted his teeth and stared at the snake lock and told it in no uncertain terms, _“Open,_ ” The snakes responded to the hissed command and the lock began to open. It took its sweet time doing it though. 

The chamber beyond was a stone path surrounded by dark water, lined with snake twined stone pillars and giant stone snake heads. At the far end was a statue, the only well lit thing in the place, the head of a man—probably Slytherin himself. 

There, at the end of the giant stone pillar and snake-lined path, standing before the statue was a dark haired boy, probably in his sixth year or so. The girls didn’t recognize him, but Harry saw red hair and hurried forward. 

The girls followed, stopping at a distance, partially hidden behind a pillar as Harry confronted the older boy.

Unsure what to do, they stared for a moment, but they were talking, just _talking._ Ginny was right there and they were _chatting_? But perhaps Harry knew the guy, it was possible, the girls didn’t know _everybody_ at school. So they waited. 

They caught snippets of the conversation, “It’s very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl,” the boy went on. “But I was patient. I wrote back.”

The girls could hear the boy pitch his voice to imitate Ginny, but they were too far away and the room, despite being stone, seemed to absorb most of the words.

“…couldn’t have been more delighted. Of all the people … You… most anxious to meet.”

“…why…meet me?” They heard Harry say.

“… _Fascinating_ history,” they caught, and “Hagrid’s my friend!” came through loud and clear because Harry had practically shouted it. More words were mumbled; _man_ this boy could talk! 

“…finish Salazar Slytherin’s _noble_ work.” Most of the next bit was too quiet to catch but they did understand when they boy said, “there isn’t much life left in her. . . . She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at _last_!” and “Dumbledore’s been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!” he half shouted, half hissed.

“He’s not as gone as you might think!” Harry shouted back.

Suddenly, bird song filled the chamber and Fawkes appeared, dropping the sorting hat in Harry’s lap. Fawkes gleamed in the low light, almost seeming a living flame. There was some more talking before the sound of stone sliding against stone and more hissing filled the stone room.

Then, an enormous snake came slithering out of what appeared to be Salazar Slytherin’s giant mouth.

“Is that-?” Leilani started.

“A _basilisk,_ ” Jo responded.

“Merlin ‘n’ Morrigan save us,” Leilani muttered under her breath.

The older boy raised his wand to curse Harry, who was scrambling away from the snake.

“Well, that's just not fair,” said Jo, raising her wand as well.

“We’re doing this?” Leili asked.

“We’re doing this. _Bombarda!”_ Jo aimed for the boy, blasting the area around him into rubble.

“ _Protego_!” shouted Leilani immediately, not waiting to see if it would be necessary. As they ducked around their hiding place to aim their spells, they caught glimpses of words written in the air. Between the two of them they managed to read ‘Riddle’ and ‘Voldemort’, which alone told them all they needed to know, really.

The boy Voldemort hissed something to the Basilisk before a jet of spell-light came hurtling at the girls from the dust cloud, off its mark by a hair, and superheated the pillar they were crouched behind, turning it into magma.

Jo grabbed Leili’s hand and pulled them out of the way, into the water. Jo cast _lumos_ and they dove, swimming along the path towards Ginny. The water was just deep enough to swim through without mass amounts of splashing. 

While Harry scuttled along the walls, Fawkes blinded the basilisk. Riddle was hiss/shouting something to the snake but it wasn’t listening. The snake’s tail swept the hat into Harry’s lap. Riddle was looking wildly around the magma pillar for his invisible opponents; they’d traded places, he by the pillar, they by Ginny. 

“I’ve got an idea, gonna need a distraction. In all fairness, there’s a strong chance this _won’t_ work,” Leili whispered when they surfaced.

“Try it anyway!” Jo said with a hint of reprimand as she looked around for something she could use. Distractions were her specialty. “ _Aguamenti!_ ” she cast and a jet of cold water collided with the magma pillar, filling the area with steam. Out of their sight, Harry pulled on the sorting hat and _begged_ for help, a sword fell on his head in answer.

Leili took a deep breath and dredged up a memory of an exorcism they’d found in a book locked away in the restricted section—because _of course_ they’d been in the restricted section. They’d spent their second year tripping the alarm spells and running away—it had be great fun. 

She hoped pronunciation didn’t count against her as she began to chant, “ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, ergo draco maledicte, ut ecclesiam tuam secura, tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos_!"

The boy Voldemort flickered and vanished. 

“Is he gone?” Leili asked hesitantly. “Oddly corporeal for a ghost. _Too_ corporeal.”

“I’m not hanging around to find out!” Jo retorted. Luckily for them, Harry was too busy grappling with the basilik to hear them. Not-so-lucky for them, Riddle wasn’t _actually_ a ghost and therefore bounced back from exorcisms. 

The steam had started to dissipate and he could see the ripples they caused in the water well enough to aim, blasting them out of the water. They never knew what spell hit them. As they collided with the wall, Harry skewered the basilisk, ripping out a fang when he reclaimed the sword from the roof of the snake’s mouth.

As Harry began to die, Riddle taunted him, saying, “So ends the famous Harry Potter, alone in the Chamber of Secrets. You’ll be back with your dearly departed mud-blood mother soon, Harry. Eleven years of borrowed time, but Lord Voldemort got you in the end. Oh yes, I got you in the end.”

Fawkes dropped the diary into Harry’s lap and Harry, with his last bit of strength, rammed the fang into the center of it. Panicked now, Riddle raised Harry’s wand and began the curse he was so famous for.

“Avada—” he started but Harry shish-ka-bobbed the diary with the fang that had pierced his arm. 

Repeatedly. 

Riddle screamed as the Basilisk venom ate away at the bits of leather and paper, the thing _bled_. Admittedly it was ink but still, it _bled_. When Riddle was gone, Harry tried to rouse Ginny as Fawkes looked balefully at him and his wounded arm. 

The girls knew just enough about phoenixes to figure out that as Harry collapsed into a seemingly unconscious heap, Fawkes was crying on his arm, purging the Basilisk venom from his system.

Pretty sure the 12 year old was out like a light, the girls picked themselves up and dripped over to where the mangled diary lay. Leili pressed wet fingers to both kids’ throats, just to make sure they still had pulses, before they turned their attention to the stupid little diary that had caused so much trouble.

Suffering the effects of Basilisk venom, Harry faded in and out of consciousness. Fawkes had healed his arm, but even phoenix tears took some time for full potency. 

“Is it dead?” Harry heard a voice ask. His eyes flickered open to take in two blurry pairs of shoes before drifting shut again; it was so much effort to keep them open.

“It’s a _book,_ how can it be _alive_?” a different voice responded, Harry barely had time to realize it sounded exasperated before he blacked out.

“Do you really want to argue this right now?” Jo whispered.

Leili paused, “Right. So…steal it?”

“Steal it,” Jo nodded once. 

“Can we _touch_ it?” She wasn’t sure, after all it had done some major damage to Ginny.

Before Leili could stop her, Jo reached down and grasped the book’s spine firmly, almost as though it was trying to escape. “Looks like it. So, hide?”

“…Why?”

“Do _you_ wanna explain the stalking?”

“Good point. Yes, hide.”

“I call the left nostril!” Jo cried gleefully.

“Ew! No! I’m not getting in there!” Leili said, repulsed.

“Fine. Mouth.”

“What? How is that _better_? A giant snake used to live in that mouth!”

Ginny groaned behind them. 

“No time to argue!” Jo took Leilani’s hand and dragged her to the statue’s gaping maw, hoisting her inside.

“This is by far the stupidest idea we’ve had,” Leili groused as she settled into the cavernous shadows.

“Hush, hide behind his tongue.”

“ _You_ hide behind his tongue!”

“Shh!” Jo hushed her. 

On the floor Harry was coming back to, prodded by Ginny shaking his shoulder, “Harry! I didn’t mean to! I t-tried to tell you but I c-couldn’t in front of Percy. It was _me!_ I-I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to! R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over and how did you kill that-that _thing_? W-where’s Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary…”

“It’s all right,” said Harry, now roused and healed and sitting up, “Riddle’s finished. Him _and_ the basilisk. C’mon, Ginny, let’s get out of here.” He looked around for the diary, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m going to be _expelled_!” Ginny wept as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. “I’ve looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I’ll have to leave and — w-what’ll _Mum and Dad_ say?”

The girls waited until they were sure the kids and Lockhart had made it out, until they could no longer hear phoenix song before climbing out of the statue. “Good riddance to that thing!” Jo said as they limped past the dead basilisk. They made it to the Chamber entrance and sat down on a particularly large piece of rubble.

Tiredly Leili pointed her wand at the pipe above them and sighed, “ _Ascendio_.” The rubble launched into the air, following the pipe before bursting out of the circle of sinks in Myrtle’s bathroom. 

Not bothering to extend the Disillusionment charm to the rubble, the girls flew down the halls to their common room. They stopped, disembarked and crawled through the barrel, down the stairs and into bed. 

Then, just as Leilani was about to fall asleep, she jerked awake with a gasp.

“What?! What is it?!” Jo jolted awake.

“I’ve just had _the greatest_ idea _of my life_!”

“Yeah? What is it?” Jo asked around a yawn.

“Lockhart! He uses Occamy Egg yolks in his hair concoction! I can get the shells from _him_!”

“He doesn’t even remember who he is, let alone who makes his shampoo.”

“A narcissist like him, I’ll bet he has a standing order,” Leili touted, feeling mighty proud of herself.

“Ok, but how do we get the shells? Or the rest of the ingredients?”

“The Ashwinder is spawned from an unattended fire, that’s easy, the Murtlap tentacles I can actually get from my dad—he’ll ask why I want them, though, that could be tricky—and we actually have Snow Glory flowers here, in the common room, and the Rue I can also get from my dad.”

“You have the potion memorized?” Jo asked, slightly incredulous.

“I’ve been trying to get ingredients for it since this time last year, I got tired of carrying a list.”

Jo sighed and stood up, crossing to Leili’s bed. She put her hands on Leili’s shoulders and looked down at her face in the darkness, “It’s late. Go to sleep.”

Leili grinned, “I’m keeping you up. Sorry.”


	39. Friends in Unexpected Places

May 29th, 1993

Fourth Year

\--

After Lucius had accidentally freed Dobby, Harry reentered McGonagall’s office with the elf standing loyally by his knee. “Professor, I have another question,” Harry said thoughtfully.

“By all means, Harry, ask away.”

“What _did_ happen to the diary? I remember seeing feet and hearing voices, girl’s voices. But they were gone when I woke up.” Dumbledore stroked Fawkes as he waited for Harry’s brain to stop spinning. “And Riddle was fighting with someone—someone who wasn’t _there_.”

Dumbledore twinkled at him, “Sometimes, Harry, it pays to have invisible friends where you least expect them.”

Back in their dorm, the girls sat on Jo’s bed slowly undressing each other to better inspect wounds inflicted by the not-ghost Riddle. “Owowowow…” Jo moaned as Leili helped her peel off her shirt. 

Leili gently poked and pressed at spots that would certainly become bruises, a charms book open beside her to the chapter on healing spells. “ _Tergeo,”_ she cast, siphoning off the blood around various small cuts and then when she could see, she cast, “ _Episky_.” Morgan sat in Jo’s lap providing a comforting, loudly purring, warm, presence. “Ok, you’re good, ’cept for the bruises, can’t do anything about those.”

“Your turn,” Jo said and Leili put her wand on the bedside table while Jo now helped her pull off her own shirt.

“How did we get ourselves into this mess?” Leili lamented.

“Poor life choices,” Jo told her as she poked and pressed on bruises that were already beginning to turn colors.

“Oh, is that all?” she chuckled. “ _Ow_ ,” she said pointedly.

“Sorry; you’ve got a bump on the back of your head.”

“Probably from where I was thrown into the _wall_.”

“Yeah, hold still. _Episky!_ ” The cut on the bump healed and the bump reduced a little, “You’re going to have a headache.”

“Curse you, poor life choices!” Leili decried dramatically.


	40. Lucky

May 30th, 1993

Fourth Year

-

Once again, while everyone slept, or tried to sleep, Harry had gone and done something reckless, brave, but reckless. Ginny was safe, everyone was awake and feasting in the Great Hall in celebration. It was an odd sight, everyone sitting on the floor munching on sweets and things in their pajamas at two in the morning. 

Those petrified were restored and released from the hospital one by one. Hagrid was released from Azkaban, looking only a little worse for the wear and Dumbledore was reinstated as headmaster. The train was no longer coming to take the students home today and everyone could breathe easy for the first time all year. 

After the early morning feast, the girls were called to see Professor Dumbledore, much to their surprise.

“I understand you two tried to help, going so far as to follow Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley into the chamber itself.”

“How did you—?” Leili interrupted, they’d been _so_ careful!

“Harry recalled hearing voices and seeing shoes there after the deed.” Dumbledore said, blue eyes shining in amusement, “I also understand that Miss Akina performed an advanced bit of charms work.”

“I just got lucky,” Leili shrugged, “It didn’t even work, not really,” she thought he meant the Exorcism, though she wasn’t sure how he knew she’d done it OR why he wasn’t upset that they’d been in the restricted section of the library. But really, you put two book-loving witches in a library with a locked door you bet your _boots_ they’re going to find out what’s behind it! 

Actually, he was referring to the Disillusionment charm she’d cast so people didn’t see two 14 year-old witches hurtling down hallways on a large piece of rubble, though admittedly the rubble was in plain view, but he also knew about the exorcism.

Dumbledore looked dubious, but accepted the answer.

“Very well then, 35 points to you both for what I’m sure was invaluable assistance and an extra ten to you Miss Akina for your ‘luck’ with a N.E.W.T level charm.”

“Thank you, Professor,” they chorused. Gryffindor still won the house cup, but it was nice not to be in fourth place anymore. 

“Now, off to bed with you, try and get some sleep.” The girls were dismissed and they walked back to their dorm and their beds.

Halfway down the hall, Dumbledore’s words seeped in through Leili’s ear, which _must_ be waterlogged from the chamber for it to have taken _this long_ to hear what he’d said. “Wait, _N.E.W.T._ _Level_ charm?” she stopped cold.

“Just got that did you?” Jo asked, half smiling, one eyebrow raised.

“I think I’ve got water in my ears or something…” she tipped her head to the side and gave the spot above one ear a solid _thump, thump,_ with the heel of her hand. “Where _does_ he get his information?”

“The Sorting Hat. Or Fawkes. Hell, it’s probably both.” 

Leili made some noncommittal noise and they kept walking.

“This whole saving the world in the middle of the night thing is going to become a habit, isn’t it?” Leili asked as they closed the door to their dormitory behind them and headed for bed. 

Jo smiled and shook her head before curling up under her covers, “It looks that way. We’ve got our work cut out for us. ‘Night.” 

“Goodnight,” Leili said into her pillow. And they both slept like the dead.


	41. Egg in our Pajamas

Fourth year

June 1st, 1993

-

“Professor Lockhart, sir?” Leili approached the _obliviated_ peacock in the hospital wing. 

“Oh, Hello! Am I a professor, then?”

“Only _the_ _best_ ,” Leili oozed saccharine sweet. Jo coughed to cover the snickering she couldn’t help.

“Well, what can I do for you? Autograph? Group photo?”

“ _Actually_ , you have this _amazing_ shampoo that I’d _really_ love to use. I, um, I found your recipe and I was hoping that you’d do me the great, _great_ honor—”

“Laying it on with a trowel, aren’t you?” Jo coughed. 

Leili turned with a smile so big it was painful and an annoyed glint in her too wide eyes and gave Jo’s arm a subtle smack. 

She turned back to Lockhart, “of allowing me to make your shampoo, if you could just have your Occamy Egg supplier send _me_ the eggs I’d be _more than happy_ to create it while you’re recovering. I’m a dab hand at potions, I’m sure a shampoo would be no problem. You have standing order for the eggs don’t you?”

“My dear girl you _are_ charming, aren’t you?” Leili fluttered her lashes and smiled. “But I’m rather afraid I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” 

Seeing this track wasn’t working, Jo jumped in, “If you’ll just autograph this for us, we’d be _ever so grateful_!” she gushed, sliding a piece of paper under his nose.

“Oh! An Autograph! Why didn’t you say so? My pleasure, dear ladies, my pleasure!” He scrawled his loopy signature on the proverbial dotted line.

“Thank you so, so much!” Leili fluttered; holding the autograph like it was the dearest thing in the world.

As they were leaving, Madam Pomfrey popped her head out of her office, “Did you get what you needed, girls?”

“Piece of cake,” they chorused, back to their usual selves. They hurried up to the owlry where Jo rolled up the paper, a letter detailing the change of delivery address and attached it to Artemis’ leg. Artemis set off into the afternoon.

The next day they found a beautiful, off-grey, speckled egg the size of a small Emu egg sitting on the nightstand between their beds. After discerning that yes there was in fact a baby Occamy in the egg, Leili scrabbled for ‘Fantastic Beasts’ while Jo coaxed Spike open. They hadn’t fully expected the egg to be un-hatched—mostly because they were expecting an infertile egg—and they certainly hadn’t expected it to arrive the _next day_. 

They spent the rest of the day researching how to hatch Occamy eggs, because no way were they going to make Lockhart’s shampoo now—something they had only planned on doing to avoid wasting the egg yolk. They located an empty box, filled it with cushioning charms, created a nest out of an old pair of Jo’s pajama bottoms, placed the egg inside and wrapped it in an old pajama shirt of Leili’s. It would have to do until they could get an incubator.


	42. Riddle Me This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the girls riddle out Voldemort's real name.

Late Summer

Before 5th year, 1993

\--

The girls were in Jo’s room at her mom’s house, Jo was tossing the pilfered diary in her hands.

“So! We know Riddle became Voldemort, but who was Riddle?” Jo said.

“Obviously, a Hogwarts student, judging by the uniform. I don’t know how long ago.”

“50 years.”

“How did you know that?” Leili asked, surprised and puzzled.

“That talk with Aragog,” they both shuddered. “Harry asked what killed Myrtle 50 years ago.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that now.”

“So Hogwarts student, 50 years ago, T. M. Riddle.” They’d found the name embossed on the back cover. “T _blank_ M _blank_ Riddle, Voldemort. …I wonder…maybe it’s an anagram?”

Leili scribbled the names on a piece of paper, “You may have a point there, tons of writers anagram their names for their books.”

“We’re going to have to work this backwards… So let’s see, we know his first name starts with ‘t’,” Jo crossed out the t, “and we know his middle name starts with ‘m’,” she scratched out the m. “There’s not enough letters.”

“Add Lord, that’s what he calls himself, _Lord_ Voldemort,” she practically swallowed the name. Jo jotted down the title. “So his name’s either Tom or Todd.”

“Mm, no, can’t be Todd, you need those ‘d’s for Riddle,” Jo crossed out the corresponding letters in Riddle. “We need an ‘i’.”

“So add one.” 

Jo did. “Tom M _blank_ Riddle, that leaves one ‘r’, a ‘v’, two ‘o’s, and an ‘l’. Rvool? Voolr? Vrool? Loovr? Volo? Lovo? I don’t think any of these are names.”

“What if… what if it’s a sentence? I mean, ‘I Lord V’ doesn’t make much sense, what if it’s ‘I _am_ Lord V’?” 

Jo added the word and tried to scramble it into something that made sense, “Rvoolam, voolarm, marvolo, malorvo?”

“I dunno; they _all_ sound made up to me. Marvolo probably sounds the _least_ made up but it’s not a name I know. When we get back to school, we can try finding him in a Slytherin family tree.”

“We may have to,” Jo commented, almost flippantly.

“You’ve got that look on your face again.”

“What look?”

Leili did her best to pull the face, half cunning and clever and half ‘I didn’t do it!’.

“What face is that?” Jo guffawed.

“It the one you get when you’re about to do something that you pulled out of a hat. It’s the ‘I’ve got a crazy idea’ face. So what’s the idea?”

“Ask the ghosts.”

“The ghosts? The school ghosts? What makes you think they’d help us?”

“Well, they’ve been around for, basically, ever, they’ve got to know things. And face it, there’s no way we could ask any of the teachers.”

“Point there. Dumbledore keeps secrets from Dumbledore; no _way_ he’d help us. Snape is out of the question.”

“And we can’t ask McGonagall, it’d tip our hand about stalking Harry, Professor Sprout would tell Dumbledore, Professor Flitwick would--”

“Also tell Dumbledore. I think they’d _all_ tell Dumbledore, honestly.”

“Right, so that leaves the ghosts,” Jo said, her point firmly made.

“But which ghosts would we even ask? The Bloody Baron won’t talk to us, being Slytherin House’s ghost he’s the most likely to know. Nearly Headless Nick is more concerned with joining the headless hunt, I don’t even know where we’d find the Grey Lady; she might know, being Ravenclaw’s ghost and all.”

“Yes, the Lady might know but you’re forgetting someone: The _Friar_. He’s _our_ ghost! Not only will he probably know, but he’ll _probably_ tell us!”

Deadpan, Leili said, “Did you know that he was killed after the Head Priest or somebody got suspicious of his ability to cure peasants of the pox by poking them with a sick?”

Jo blinked, “No. No, I did not.”

Suddenly there was a cracking noise in one corner of the room. The girls looked at each other and then at the makeshift incubator that sat in the safe in Jo’s wall. They had decided that the ill-used wall-safe was the best place to put the Occamy Egg. It was safe, secluded, well insulated. They looked back at each other and then scrambled to the safe.

“It’s hatching!” Leili said with an air of panic.

“I can see that!” Jo retorted.

“Is it supposed to be hatching already?”

“How should I know? The books didn’t _say_ how long till hatch-date!”

“Well, what do we do?”

“We’re going to need bugs.”

“Do you happen to have any?”

“No. No I don’t.”

The girls looked at each other and then scrambled to their feet, literally tripping over each other in their haste to get into the back yard. 

Jo’s little sister paused on her way to the kitchen, hearing garbled voices and occasional shrieks from the back yard. She slowly moved to the sliding patio door to peek outside only to have her vision completely eclipsed by Jo’s dirt-streaked face and frazzled hair.

“Keep walking,” Jo said before slamming the door shut and sprinting back to the far corner of the yard where her best friend Leilani appeared to be… digging?

Jillian decided she’d rather not know.


	43. Attack on the Hogwarts Express

Sept. 1st, 1993

Fifth Year

\--

It was a normal day aboard the Hogwarts express; the girls sat in their compartment with Luna. It was raining outside, but as usual it was nice and toasty inside. Luna was reading her copy of her father’s magazine and Jo and Leili were playing with the small wooden catapult Jo had had brought, launching _Diminuendo_ ’ed chocolate frogs at random, unsuspecting passersby. 

All was fun and games until the train came to a screeching halt. When a towering, darkly cloaked and hooded figure opened their compartment door they felt the temperature drop to freezing and all the laughter vanish in the figure’s wake. 

The creature hovered there, its hooded head sweeping from one girl to the next; it seemed to _enjoy_ Jo and Luna more than Leilani. Skidding down the hall, Kanani, who would be graduating this year, raced to the rescue of her sister. Drawing her wand she pointed it into the compartment and cast a cheering charm. She over did it. The girls burst out into uncontrollable giggles and started launching chocolate frogs at the thing in the door way, confusing the Dementor which prompted more laughter until a blue-silver wolf came charging down the corridor, chasing away the gloom. Kanani slipped inside and sat down beside her sister, suddenly exhausted.

The threat to happiness removed, the deadening depression started to lift. A short time later a tall man with brown hair and robes that looked shabby—but upon closer inspection appeared to just be well worn in, like a pair of jeans in which the knees are starting to go—walked past. He took a look inside and raised an eyebrow at the hysterical laughter, “I’ve never seen a response like that to a Dementor attack…” he mentioned.

“Cheering charm went slightly wrong,” Kanani explained.

“Ah,” the man grinned and with a flick of his wand they calmed, but not until after launching a chocolate frog at him. “Eat these,” he said, scooping up the frog and waving it at them, “it’ll help.” He popped the frog in his mouth as he walked away.

“What’s a Dementor?” Jo asked when she stopped giggling and Kanani had left the compartment.

“I don’t know,” Leili said, still grinning.


	44. Boggart Lesson

September 2nd, 3rd & 6th, 1993

Fifth Year

\--

When Jo and Leilani walked into their first class with Professor R. J. Lupin, they walked into a normal classroom, save for the lack of Professor. The other students were milling around, talking amongst themselves, wondering where Lupin was. Only Leili and Jo even bothered to look up. Had everyone else, they would have seen the Professor chewing on a piece of chocolate in the doorway of his upstairs office. 

With a grin Jo and Leili waved cheerfully at him. They saw his answering grin and ‘well fancy that, I’ve been spotted’ laugh. The girls took their seats in the middle of the room when Lupin finished his chocolate and called attention to himself.

“Good, you’re all here. Gather ‘round please. Thank you. Now I know you’re all 5th years, but I also know that your classes on the subject of defense against the dark arts have been, shall we say, a little thin? So for the first week we are going to recap everything you are supposed to know by now.” The first day was boring as they went over how to treat werewolf bites alongside an assortment of counter-spells and curse of the bogies. 

The second day was a little better with vampire bats and… iguanas, of all creatures. On the third day Lupin brought them to a closet. It was an ordinary looking closet. They organized into a single file line and he gave them their instructions, “Now when you see whatever comes out of that wardrobe, I want you to very, very clearly say ‘ _Riddikulus_ ’ repeat that for me, no wands just yet.”

_“Riddikulus”_ the class chanted back.

“Now before we get started there’s something you should know, ‘ _Ridikulus_ ’ works on all shapeshifters except for Animagi, werewolves and, as far as I know, metamorphmagi. It forces them back into their original shape or a shape of your choosing. If you do not think of something amusing for a boggart to become, nothing will happen, it will remain in the shape of your worst fear. That being said, let’s get started!”

A Ravenclaw student, Robert Hilliard, was up first. The wardrobe opened and out sailed the Bloody Baron, looking perhaps a touch more terrifying then normal. After a second of hesitation his wand went up and one _Riddikulus_ later the Boggart Baron was wearing a dress. And not just any dress, no, an 18th century dress, complete with wig, corset, and hips so big that when he tried to sail back into the wardrobe he couldn’t get through. He literally bounced back into the room, sending everyone into a fit of laughter.

The next kid stepped up, another Ravenclaw, and this time the boggart solidified into a black box around the kid, at first they could hear panicked whimpers before the kid shouted “ _Riddikulus!_ ” and the box expanded and popped like a great black balloon, before raining flowers on everyone, “Flowers for everyone!” one kid called and everybody laughed.

Leili stepped up and the boggart became a rose strewn coffin with Jo’s name engraved into the side. Leili hesitated before forcing herself to remember that this wasn’t real, that it was a boggart. She raised her wand, “ _Riddikulus!_ ” and the hinges of the coffin creaked as the lid lifted and Jo sat up in it coughing. 

Boggart Jo looked at Leili and asked, “Hast thou any coffin drops?” Leili snickered quietly with a grimace, it was a truly terrible joke, and the real Jo burst out guffawing. She wound up bent over with tears in her eyes from laughing so hard. 

Boggart Jo didn’t stop with one joke, no she kept going, Leili had her boggart recite every bad joke she could think of. Jokes like: “Why don’t blind people like to skydive? Because it scares the dogs!” and “Why do Bagpipers walk while they play? To get away from the noise!” and “What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A nervous wreck!” and “What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire? Frostbite!”

Not every joke garnered a response but they were all so terrible that those who did react, reacted with laughter and as usual, that laughter was contagious. Soon everyone was laughing and the boggart was defeated. Jo straightened and wiped her eyes saying, “Aaah, I crack myself up!”

Jo was up next and the boggart changed again, this time it became a dozen bodies strewn across the floor. 

She stopped laughing.

Among the bodies of the Hufflepuff first years lay the three bodies of Hogwarts’ most trouble prone students, Harry, Ron and Hermione; Their deaths, her failure. 

Where others would have broken down in tears, Jo got mad. “ _Riddikulus!_ ” she yelled, and the boggart became the bodies of death eaters that had killed those she’d striven to protect. Jo was darkly amused; she gave the boggart an evil grin and a cackle. Nobody laughed. Everyone who knew her was utterly terrified of this dark amusement in an otherwise cheerful girl. 

Leili, who had been waiting a little ways down the line, gave an exasperated sigh and muttered her usual, “What am I going to do with her?”

Lupin looked at Jo, and then at her boggart. He gave it a nod and gently pushed Jo towards Leilani giving the next student a chance at the boggart.

“You’re supposed to make it funny, not _disturbing_ ,” Leili whispered as they walked to the back of the line.

“It _was_ funny, to me at least.”

“You freaked them out!”

“Dead death eaters. Dead, Death… how am I the _only_ one that finds the humor in that?”

“Oh, Jo!” Leili groaned. 


	45. Psychotic

September 6th, 1993

Fifth Year

-

During dinner Professor Lupin sat next to Professor Sprout and very quietly said, “Pomona, you have a potential problem with two of your students. One has an unhealthy dependency on the other and don’t even get me started on the other’s obvious psychosis.” Pomona looked at him, slightly startled, _her_ students? _Psychotic_? What on earth was he talking about?

“Which two students are these, Remus?”

“Leilani and Jocelyn. Leilani’s boggart is Jocelyn dead and Jocelyn’s boggart is your first year students dead. The psychotic thing is, instead of turning the boggart into something humorous, she turned it into dead death eaters!” Pomona Sprout nearly choked on her dinner when she tried not to laugh, that sounded like Jocelyn all right!

She said, “I’ll handle it Remus, Thank you,” and proceeded to gulp down the wine in her goblet.

After dinner Professor Sprout summoned the girls to green house three, where they could have some privacy.

“Girls, I’m afraid you’ve worked Professor Lupin into quite a worry.”

“But we haven’t _done_ anything…” Leilani protested.

“He’s under the impression that Jo needs psychiatric help, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he thinks the same of you, Leilani.”

“Psychi—Ohh,” Leili said as she figured it out, “This is about our boggarts, isn’t it?” Professor Sprout nodded, “Damn,” she swore as she sat on one of the tables swinging her feet back and forth. Normally, since she was all of 15, she was averse to swearing but she felt this time it was warranted.

“I don’t need to have my head analyzed, Dead death eaters, it’s a pun,” Jo explained, pulling up a stool, “it was funny.”

“He didn’t see it that way, he saw it more as you taking revenge for the students they ‘killed’.” Jo didn’t tell her that that was also probably a bit true. “He thinks you have an unhealthy dependence on Jo, Leilani; is that true?” Leili thought about it a moment then said,

“Technically. But it’s not _unhealthy_ , I’ve just known her since I was 9, so yeah I think I’m a little dependent on her. She’s my best friend.”

“Aww, Leili!” Jo gushed.

Leili shrugged, “It’s true.”

“So whatcha gonna do ‘bout it?” Jo asked, looking at their head of house who shrugged.

“What _can_ I do about it? I could, I guess, refer you both to a therapist…”

“Oh, please no,” Leili protested.

“Why not? All they do is try to help.”

“The students already have to see therapists whenever something bad happens for post traumatic evals, I think if I had to see someone regularly, my head would explode.”

“And you Jocelyn? Do you also feel your head would explode?”

“Nah, I just wouldn’t go.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want _that_ , would we?”

Professor Sprout grinned as the girls chorused, “Definitely not.”

“Very well then, off you go, back to your dormitory; don’t forget to study, we do have a test next week, whether your heads have exploded or not. Oh, and girls? Try not to make Professor Lupin worry overly much, would you? He’s already got quite a bit on his mind these days, poor dear.”

“Yes, Professor,” they agreed.


	46. The Fat Friar

Early/Mid September 1993

Fifth Year

\--

“You know who else we could ask if Friar doesn’t know or won’t answer?” Leili said on their way back to their dorm.

“Who?”

“Hagrid.”

“I don’t think he’d tell us and I’m not Harry, I don’t know how to get people to admit things they’d rather not admit.”

“With Hagrid, I don’t think that takes any special skill. He opens his mouth and then finds he ‘should not have told you that’,” the thought was meant kindly enough, as both girls had a great deal of respect and affection for Hagrid. After all who else could hatch a baby dragons and Acromantula and almost get away with it? 

As the Leili closed the dorm door behind them, Jo pulled out a sack of bugs from her book bag. “Phoebe,” she called softly. No one was supposed to know they had an Occamy, tricky since they shared the room with three other girls who could be fairly nosey. “Phoebe, we brought bugs!” 

A trill purred out from beneath Leili’s bed as Phoebe responded to the promise of snacks. The Occamy slithered out from the hatbox that was her home. As she wound her way over to her humans she grew to fit the available space. She filled the room. “Smaller, Phoebe! Smaller!” Leili yelped as they ducked. Phoebe obligingly shrank and curled up in Leili’s hands, stretching her now tiny wings and chirping her hellos.

“Every time, Phoebs? Really? Do we have to go through this _every_ _time_?” Phoebe trilled happily at Jo. 

“At least she responds to ‘smaller’ now.” It was a command they’d been trying to teach her since the day she hatched and had nearly destroyed Jo’s wall safe. 

In the dead of night they crept into the crypt-like restricted section and pulled down a book on Salazar Slytherin and a roll of parchment they’d tucked away for safekeeping. The Friar joined them and whispered chidings on how they should be a-bed and not a-sneaking. Once properly chastised they asked him what he knew of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

“He was a charming boy,” Friar said reluctantly. “He charmed his teachers and his friends and anyone he thought he could use. He charmed Rowena’s daughter, made her feel special, something she had missed as a child. She had lived in her mother’s shadow and died in it. So when Tom plied her with stories of his own and gave her someone she could relate to, she fell for it. There was something wrong with him... He was charming, but diabolical.”

“Do you know who his family is?”

“Well, you’ve got his ancestor right; he _was_ a descendant of Slytherin. His parents, well, he was an orphan.”

“I can’t believe Slytherin had kids,” Leili said more to herself than Jo or Friar.

“Oh yes, at least one. The Gaunt line can be traced to the founder of the American Wizardry School, an Irish witch named Isolt. Her mother and aunt were Gaunts.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of her! My dad went to her school, Ilvermorny. He wears the cloak closure as a lapel pin to fancy dinners.”

“His father was a muggle,” Jo remembered. “He said something about not wanting to keep his muggle-father’s name. So he’s a junior. Tom Marvolo Riddle _Jr.,_ ”.

“Did you say Marvolo?” Friar asked.

“Yeah, we think it might have been his middle name, why?” Leili asked.

“There was a family, they never attended Hogwarts so you won’t find them in any of the ‘accepted student’ parchment rolls, but the father’s name was Marvolo Gaunt. He was sent to Azkaban in 1925 or so.”

“Gaunt again. So he’s _got_ be related to Marvolo Gaunt.”

“Through his daughter. The Gaunts did not have Squib children, excepting Isolt, ofcourse,” Friar reminded them.

“He’s related to two school founders, Slytherin and Isolt, that’s interesting. I wonder if he knows.”

“He knows about Slytherin at the very least, but past that, who knows.”


	47. HOWLER

1993

Fifth year

\--

It was mail time and Artemis had just dropped a howler in front of Jo.

“What did you _do_?” another puff asked warily.

“Nothing…? I think?” Jo drawled. “I can’t think of anything I‘ve done that would warrant a _Howler_ on my _birthday_.”

“Well, go on then, open it,” Leili interjected.

“No way!”

“It’ll be worse if you don’t,” someone else pointed out.

“ _So_?”

“Alright,” Leili shrugged. Truth be told, she knew _exactly_ what was going to happen _._ She’d planned it last year after young Ron Weasley had crashed his dad’s flying car into the Whomping Willow at the start of term.

It took a solid minute but the Howler began to emit smoke and shake and pretty soon it had soared to Jo’s eye level and exploded. 

At a near deafening tone it began to sing, “HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FROM ALL OF US TO YOU! WE WISH IT WAS OUR BIRTHDAY, SO WE COULD PARTY TOO! HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE! WE WISH IT WAS OUR BIRTHDAY, SO WE COULD PARTY, TOO! WHOO!” 

Everyone in the great hall had stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the unconventional Howler.

Beside her, Leili was hysterical. Her face was cherry red from laughing so hard while Jo was staring half embarrassed, half amused and half uncomprehending because that was _not_ what she had expected. The Howler grinned at her before pressing a loud, papery smooch to her forehead. “Happy birthday. Love, Mom.” The Howler tore itself to shreds before catching fire and leaving little piles of ash behind.

“You should see the look on your face!” Leili laughed, her face buried in her hands. “Happy Birthday, Jo.”

“You arranged that? I’m _going_ to kill you,” Jo threatened through a laugh.

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if you had just opened it like I told you.”

“Oh, _sure_ , uh-huh. You want to do that again? Because I’m pretty sure there were some people in _Belgium_ who didn’t hear it. How did you manage this, anyway?”

“It’s the letter that’s enchanted, not the person who writes the letter, so muggles _can_ send them, they just… don’t. So last year, after Ron got _his_ howler, I began to wonder if you could send a nice howler and then if muggles could send them. The letter will always be loud but it doesn’t have to be angry.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Nah, you like me too much.”

“I’ll make an exception.”

Leili thought nothing of the threat until she glanced at Jo ‘s face. The look there was enough to send her scuttling from the room with Jo prowling after her.


	48. Werewolf Discovery

September 30th, 1993

Fifth Year

\--

Jo and Leilani sat down in a pair of ultra comfortable chairs in their common room after dinner one night when a realization tickled Leilani’s mind.

“Hey, Jo? What date is it?” Leili asked as she pulled out a moon chart

“…Monday, why?” Jo asked, not looking up from the bit of homework she was chipping away at.

“Date, not day.”

“Oh, uhh the 30th. Why?” Jo replied.

“Lupin wasn’t in class today.”

“Yeah, maybe he’s sick.”

“Maybe…” Leilani said distractedly as she mused over the moon chart.

“What? What’re you thinking?” Jo looked up at her friend, she knew that tone. That tone meant Leili was onto something, or at least she thought she was. 

“Tonight is the full moon.” She said looking at Jo. Jo understood where Leili was going immediately,

“Werewolf.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, one time doesn’t mean anything; it could just be chance.”

“You’re right, I’m getting ahead of myself.” 

When Lupin was nowhere to be found on the next two full moons the girls had their answer, Professor R.J. Lupin was a werewolf.

That night Jo broke. She crawled out of her bed and over to Leili. She began pawing at her sleeping friend’s arm—she began to suspect they’d been hanging around Morgan too long—until Leili finally opened her eyes. 

“ _Whaaat_?” Leili groaned, suddenly and deeply annoyed as she blinked Jo into focus. “Jo, it’s like, three in the morning—“

“I need help,” Jo’s voice cracked a little. 

Leili stopped her grumbling.

“It’s driving me insane, I can’t take it anymore!” Jo whispered. She was in agony. 

Leili sat up, threw off the covers and got up. She took Jo’s hand and whispered, “C’mon, let’s go upstairs.” 

Jo shuffled along behind her, her hair mussed from tossing and turning and all around not sleeping.

Leili put Jo in one of the big squishy arm chairs and sat across from her, “What’s going on?”

“So you know how I get these weird feelings, sometimes? The ones I can’t explain?”

“Yeah?” Leili said around a yawn. “Whaabouem?” 

“I’ve got one about Ron Weasley’s rat.”

“His rat?”

“Yeah. I dunno know why, but I’ve had it since they were firsties.”

“Why are you _just now_ telling me about it?” Leili said with the uncomprehending annoyance she got whenever Jo hid something from her.

Jo looked bashful, “It was nothing! Just a weird little niggle at the back of my neck when I saw the disgusting creature. But then, this year, all month, it’s been getting worse.”

“Worse _how_?” Leili asked, fully awake now.

“Like, instead of just when the rat is around, it was whenever Ron was near, then whenever Harry was near, _now_ I’m getting this stupid cold sweat whenever I so much as _hear_ them _talking_ about Scabbers and Hermione’s cat!”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah! I’ve got to get my hands on that rat and figure out _why_!”

“I’ll help you, but seriously, next time, don’t wait until it gets this bad. So what do you want to do?”

“I want to sneak into Gryffindor Tower and get my hands on that stupid little rat.”

“Mmk, and how exactly do you plan on doing that? Gryffindor has a pretty good security system, what with the password and the talking portrait and all.”

“It’s late, she’ll be asleep, maybe she’ll be too groggy to realize we’re not Gryffs. And as long as we’re not in uniform…”

And that was how the girls found themselves outside Gryffindor’s Fat Lady saying, “We forgot the password.”

“No password, no entry.”

“Please? I just want to crawl back into bed and sleep through the rest of the week,” Leili pleaded, she so wasn’t kidding.

“Then you shouldn’t have gotten out of it,” and that was that, the Fat Lady leaned back in her frame, closed her eyes and started snoring.

“Well, that was a bust.”

For the next month the girls began to try every strategy they could think of to get inside Gryffindor Tower. They actually got in once, by borrowing two Gryffindor ties from the laundry and sneaking in with a crowd but Scabbers wasn’t there. Several months on, Leili would have to stop Jo from trying to climb down the chimney.


	49. Flight of the Fat Lady

Halloween 1993

Fifth Year

\--

It was Halloween at Hogwarts and, as always, Hagrid had grown a multitude of gigantic pumpkins. Jo, as usual, carved her pumpkin freestyle and was waiting on Leilani to finish hers. Leili liked to choose the harder, more intricate patterns in the carving books her mom sent every year.

Jo sighed, “Why must you _always_ pick the hard ones?”

“Because the easy ones aren’t nearly as cool, nor as much fun!” Leili grinned as she put the final touches on her pumpkin, before turning it to face Jo. “There, what d’you think?” Jo bit back a laugh, Leili had carved a haunted house, complete with bats and turrets she’d had to re-attach using toothpicks and a couple Permanent Sticking Charms.

“One day, we’ll find you an easy one.” 

Leili just grinned and shrugged. The girls placed a candle inside each, lit the wicks and sent the pumpkins floating up to mingle among the bats and other pumpkins. The girls headed back to their dorm, picked up Artemis and Morgan and headed out with the rest of the group going to Hogsmeade Village.

They wandered around, poking their heads into Zonko’s, Honeydukes—grabbing a large bag _full_ of candy (it was all Jo’s idea to get so much candy, though Leili had _no_ problem helping her eat it). They spent a solid three hours reading in Tomes and Scrolls before the girls and their pets headed back for the feast. 

As always, the feast was a delight but the most excitement came after, when, on the way from the feast, the Gryffindors discovered something most frightening in the hallway outside of their common room. 

The Fat Lady had vanished. Her canvas was ripped and torn, shredded in places and she was nowhere to be seen. With no Fat Lady, the Gryffindors were stranded. Peeves cackled overhead.

When Dumbledore asked him if he had witnessed the Fat Lady’s flight Peeves cackled some more and responded, “Oh yes, Professorhead, he got very angry when she wouldn't let him, you see. Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black!”

Dumbledore ordered the Fat Lady found and that the Great hall be cleared of tables and furnished instead with warm, squishy purple sleeping bags. He ordered each Head of House instruct his or her Head Boys, Head Girls and Prefects to gather their students and escort them to the Great Hall.

The girls snuggled down into the cushy sleeping bags and then squirmed, wiggled and inch-wormed their way closer to each other so they could whisper without being caught. “What’s going on?” Jo asked

“Really bad guy, Sirius Black—the guy all over the news this year—somehow got into the castle while everyone was distracted with the feast. He tried to get into the Gryffindor Common Room and when he couldn’t he, I guess, got mad and took a knife to the Fat Lady’s portrait. Scared her so bad she’s gone missing. I don’t know how he got past the Dementors, but he’s done it twice now. My parents are going to _completely_ freak when they hear about this.”

“But what did he do that got him thrown in Azkaban to begin with?”

“He killed his best friend. Sold him and his family to Voldemort; _Harry’s_ family.”

“How’d he get in? You can’t Apparate in or out, can’t have flown in, not with the Dementors posted everywhere, I imagine you might be able to portkey out but not in, and what disguise could possibly allow one to slip into the school undetected by Dementor, teacher, student or ghost?” Jo asked.

“A really clever one?” Leili offered.


	50. Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really quickly, I want to thank Tumblr user ‘Deaneggsandsam’ for putting the ‘Knock on Wood’ idea out into the world.

November 6th, 1993

Fifth year  
\--

It was early November and to say it was raining or windy or muddy was a massive understatement. It was so windy that the brooms wouldn’t fly straight, the rain so heavy that no one could see more than a few inches in front of their own noses, thunder filled their ears and the clouds were so thick and dark that the only decent light came from flashes of lightning.

Hufflepuff was playing Gryffindor, and while Leili had been backstage with Jo the match had almost been called off due to the unforeseen strength of the rainstorm. But both teams had agreed to give it a go. Leili and Jo had both knocked on the nearest wooden thing and chimed, “knock on wood”. 

A second later the Gryffindor beaters had called, “Knock on Wood!” and promptly walloped their captain. The girls laughed and Leili clapped because it was the last thing she had expected. Fred grinned at her and she grinned back, wiping away the few tears that had escaped as she laughed. Thus began a new Gryffindor tradition.Now in the air, the beaters tried to be careful about where they hit the Bludgers, a task made nearly impossible when no one could tell where anyone was flying. It was really no surprise then, that Harry narrowly escaped a Bludger, twice. 

When Gryffindor was up by 50 points, Wood called a time out. When the players remounted their brooms, Leili drew her wand and with a whip-like flick and a carefully uttered _“Lumos Maxima”_ she threw a ball of bright white light up against the clouds. She didn’t know why no one had thought of it sooner and then the teams were up again both Harry and Cedric were desperate to catch the snitch and end the game. The wind was so high that mud was splattering onto fliers, pretty soon no one could tell who was on whose side any more. 

As Leili began to recast Lumos after it had faded, a forked spike of lightning lit the sky and Harry saw something on the ground. As Harry stared, Cedric spotted the Snitch. He zoomed after it and Harry, snapped out of his daze by Wood shouting at him, turned and followed. They were nearly neck and tail when suddenly the world fell silent and something colder than the wind and rain swept over the field. Harry felt as though he were chest deep in freezing water, lances of pain shot through him and he looked down into the hundred face-less faces of the Dementors. 

If it hadn’t been for the swift actions of Professor Dumbledore, Harry would have broken probably every bone in his body when he fell from his broom. Instead, his descent was magically slowed and when he hit, he hit mud softened by a cushioning charm. 

When Harry came to about a half hour later he was greeted by six worried faces and the news that not only had they lost, but also that his Nimbus had hit the Whomping Willow and had been reduced to little more than firewood and splinters.

It was a victory for Hufflepuff that no one felt good about. Cedric tried to arrange a rematch but Wood—in a hollow, dead voice that would persist for a week—insisted that Hufflepuff had won fair and square. Nobody celebrated that weekend, except maybe Slytherin who knew that unless Ravenclaw beat Hufflepuff, they would be playing the team considered by most to be a pushover, an easy victory. 

Of course, you would think that the Slytherins had learned by now not to provoke the Hufflepuffs, after all, badgers have teeth. Sadly—for the Slytherins—this was not the case.


	51. Shenanigans with Spike

November 1993

Fifth Year

\--

Ron and Hermione were walking Harry to the first Quidditch practice since Hufflepuff had won the last match when a lone Dementor floated over head with a growling Monster Book of Monsters clinging to the edge of its cloak, “What the…?” Harry asked as they joined the team.

“Hmm? Oh that’s just Spike. The Hufflepuffs are weird,” Angelina said as the thump, thump of the book hitting the Quidditch ring the Dementor had floated through resonated throughout the field.

Fred and George joined the group of four, “Weird?” George said.

“No,” they agreed.

“The Hufflepuffs are _awesome,_ ” Fred said, identical grins etched onto both boys faces.

“Hufflepuffs?” Harry asked in wonder.

“They’re scary, brilliant though!” Fred said cheerfully.

“Never mess with a Hufflepuff, mate,” George warned.

“Well, that poses more questions then it answers…” Hermione said before a whistle was heard and Spike lifted the corners of its cover, like ears. Then there were two short whistles and the book released the Dementor and, making use of its cover, _glided_ through the air, coming to land with a soft thump on the grass before scuttling off.

The Fred and George smiled at each other when they noticed the shock and utter confusion on the trio’s faces. “Hufflepuffs, Georgie, Hufflepuffs.”

“You said it, Freddie.”

Far away at Hagrid’s hut, Jo scooped Spike up off the grass and held him in her arms like she held Morgan. 

“Hullo Hagrid,” a male voice said inside.

“Well, Hullo Mr. Scamander! What’re yeh doin’ here?”

“We asked him, Hagrid. Hello, Mr. Scamander,” Jo said from the doorway. Leili waved to him from beside/behind her.

“Your letter said something about an Occamy?” he said, not looking at them quite straight.

“This is Phoebe,” Leili said indicating the hat-box in her arms. “Our last Defense teacher used Occamy yolks in his shampoo and at the end of the year, we managed to procure an egg. I needed the shell for a potion but we didn’t expect for her to still be inside. She hatched in July. We can’t take care of her properly and Professor Sprout—our Head of House—recommended we talk to you.”

Newt glanced sideways at the two young witches in front of him. Black and yellow scarves draped across their shoulders, a badger on their robes, Hufflepuffs. His house. He watched as the shorter of the two carefully lifted the lid of the hatbox while the taller stroked the Monster Book of Monsters in her arms as though it were a cat. They were peculiar. He took a step forward as Leili opened the box and popped her lips at the young Occamy to get her attention.

Jo watched Newt carefully, his hair was still red and his eyes still sparkled and his aged hands were steady as they reached into the box and carefully lifted Phoebe out. “Hullo,” he whispered, looking her over. She looked good, well-groomed and healthy, not a scale out of place or a single feather broken. “How old is she?”

“Um,” Leili blinked, she was sure she’d said it but suddenly, she couldn’t think of it. It happened sometimes when she wasn’t expecting the question.

“July,” Jo supplied.

“Right!” Leili eyes widened as she remembered. “Right, she hatched in July.” She shook her head to clear it. 

Phoebe wound gently around his wrists, spreading her wings out, feather by feather. “Where have you been keeping her?”

“In the hatbox,” Leili said with a twinge of embarrassment. She’d never dream of keeping any other animal in a _hatbox_ but Phoebe was an Occamy; she could change size to fit the box. But still. 

Jo narrowed her eyes at Newt, daring him to say something. They were low on resources and were trying to keep Phoebe as secret as possible, but instead of deriding the girls, Newt ran the back of a finger under the little Occamy’s chin. “What were your plans for her?”

“Yeah, that’s where you come in,” Jo said. “We can’t keep keeping her in a _hatbox_ under our beds, she _deserves_ a better home. So we were hoping you’d take her.”

He held the Occamy up to eye level and just instantly began to ignore the humans in the room, “Of course I’ll take you, you little beauty. You’ll like it in my suitcase, it’s much nicer than that hatbox,” He began walking out of the room still talking to Phoebe.

The girls watched him go dazed and a little confused. “Well, I guess that settles that, then,” Jo said, watching the pair of them go.

Hagrid chuckled, “She’ll be fine with ‘im. He’ll take righ’ good care of ‘er.”

“Oh sure, no, not worried about that. It was just…”

“Abrupt.”

“Yeah, I’m going to miss her,” Leili said, then quietly called, “Maybe we could arrange some visitations or something?” She wasn’t trying to be heard.

Jo found the bright side, “Well, at least we won’t have to go hunt down bugs anymore!”


	52. Dear House-Elves...

December 16th, 1994

Fifth year

\--

Three weeks ago Jo and Leili had convinced Luna to buy them two S.P.E.W badges from Hermione. Today she had brought them news from Ginny about how the house-elves had stopped cleaning the tower due to Hermione’s knitting.

“They’ve stopped cleaning because she knits?” Leili chuckled, “Why?”

“She’s been trying to set them free with knitted hats and scarves hidden around the tower,” Luna explained.

“Clever Clogs,” Jo snorted.

“It was very thoughtful of her,” Luna said.

“’Twas; 'twas just thought without research,” Leili mumbled, her hand over her eyes in mild embarrassment.

“How’d they get here, anyway?” Jo asked. The house-elves were interesting little beasties, but she didn’t interact with them much; they seemed to operate on invisibility.

“They’ve been here since the founding of the castle,” Luna said. “Helga Hufflepuff let them in and gave them good work conditions. It’s considered to be the best decision she could have made at the time.”

“D’you know if the house-elves like sweets?” Jo asked Luna. If any one would know, it would be her.

“I believe so.”

Jo turned in her seat on the bench and poked Leili in the arm. Repeatedly. “Hey, heyheyhey, I have an idea. D’you have some parchment I could use?”

Leili turned and rummaged in her bag. She pulled out a self-inking quill she’d bought for just such occasions. Handing it to Jo, she continued rustling in her bag, “How big d’you need?”

“Couple inches. Regular length would be fine.”

With a triumphant flourish, Leili pulled out a slightly shorter-than-standard piece and handed it over.

“Thank _you_!”

“No biggie. I’ve really got to clean out my bag. How do I ever _find_ anything in here?” Leili murmured mostly to herself.

“Talent,” Jo replied smartly as she scribbled out a letter to the house-elves. “Dear House-Elves who tend to _blank_ House. Please mark your favourite sweets with a tick-mark. Please ensure that every elf makes a mark next to his or her favorite treat. This survey had been to sate the curiousity of the Ravenclaws, thank you very much for your co-operation. Sincerely, the Ravenclaws.”

Jo spun the paper around for Luna to read. “You’ve forgotten the house,” Luna said matter-of-factly.

“No, I haven’t. I’m not done yet,” Jo grinned. She reached out her wand and flicked it at the parchment, _Geminio_.” In almost the space of a blink, the parchment had shuddered and duplicated itself three times. “ _Finite._ ”

“Oooh, I gotcha. Now all you have to do is write in the house names, clever!” Leili said when she realized what Jo had done.

“Exactly!” Jo said, feeling a bit proud of herself for thinking of it before Leili. She proceeded to scribble in the four house names and gave two copies to Luna to place in the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Towers. She kept two, one to put in Hufflepuff’s basement and the other to give to Marcus to put in Slytherin’s dungeon.

“What made you think of this?” Leili asked.

“Well, if giving them clothes is insulting to them, then so will giving them money, so why not give them something that shows we appreciate them while at the same time not interfering with the way they work? Thus! Sweets!”

“And the Gemino spell?”

“I _do_ pay attention in Charms, you know,” Jo said, feigning dramatic affront.

“Did _I_ say you didn’t?” Leili asked in a tone of ‘who me? _Never!_ ”

On the morning of the 18th, the girls collected the surveys from Luna and Marcus and were quite pleased to see several tickmarks beside the large-quantity candies, like Bertie-Botts, Nut Brittle, Droobles, Pepper Imps, Exploding Bon-Bons and more. It was going to be an expensive candy weekend, but if the house-elves liked it, then they wouldn’t complain too much. 

When they were done shopping at Honeydukes the girls packed up the candies in four baggies, one for each house. They made sure a bag made it into each house’s common room by way of Luna, who gave a bag to Ginny while Jo gave the last to Marcus. 


	53. Auror Investigation

Early December, 1993

Fifth Year

-

“Leili! Lei-li!” a first year said, trying to get Leilani’s attention,

“What-y?”

“The ministry sent an Auror to investigate the Dementor thing!”

“What _dementor thing_?”

“The dementor thing! You know!”

“No, no I really don’t.”

“Can you pull your head out of your cauldron for 5 minutes and pay attention to me?!”

“Oi, don’t get snippy with me, kiddo. If I explode this cauldron, I’m blaming you. Here, mash these.” She handed the girl the mortar and pestle and turned back to her cauldron, adjusting the heat. Taking the bowl back from the firstie, she turned off the heat. “Stand back,” she said and upended the bowl over the cauldron; there was a ‘poof!’ and a cloud of steam, or possibly smoke, rose from the cauldron. Leili waved her hand over the cauldron to try and disperse the cloud. “Well, that went well. Now, you wanted to talk to me?”

“The ministry has sent an Auror to investigate the dementor thing.” She repeated, enunciating each word.

“Yes, you said that. Would you explain? What dementor thing? The fact that they’re invading school grounds every other week?”

“More like why they’re acting weird, not that I know how anyone could tell that they were behaving oddly, they’re _dementors_.”

“You mean Spike.” Leili said with a wry grin, “Jo should be here for this, he’s her book.” Leili stood and went to the door, “Jo! Come hither! It’s about Spike,” she called. Jo came, Spike following close at her heels.

“Who’s shoe has he eaten this time?”

“No one’s, but the ministry has apparently started an investigation into the odd behaviors of their dementors.”

“So? No one’s gonna believe a _book_ is attacking the dementors, it’s silly.”

“But it’s true!” the 11 year old protested.

“You know that, and I know that and she knows that, but that doesn’t mean _they_ have to know that.” Leili said with a grin as she ladled potion into a bottle.

So it went that the Ministry’s Dementor investigating Auror came to the school and questioned the students. He gathered the students in their houses and questioned them briefly there, telling them to come to him should they think of anything. House by house was questioned, “Does anyone know anything about the odd behavior of the Dementors?”

Gyrffindor:

“They’re plaguing the school, if that’s what you mean,” George said.

“Ah, no, no that’s not what I meant.”

“More like they’re being chased away by something?” Colin Creevey suggested.

“Who said anything about that?” The Auror asked.

“Well, if you won’t tell us what defines ‘odd Dementor behavior’ then how are we to know if we’ve noticed anything?” Fred asked.

“Trust me, you’d know,” the Auror said cryptically before going to the next house on the list.

Ravenclaw:

“Did you know that Dementors are possibly related to Lethifolds and wraiths?” one girl asked.

“Uh, no, now about the question…”

“How about that they ‘see’ by sensing emotions?” an older boy chimed in.

“Yes, but about the--”

“Did you know that they are the only beings that can drain witches and wizards of their powers?” another boy said.

“Now that is a _myth_ , it has never been proven!”

“Funny how they’ve been posted around a school full of young witches and wizards; isn’t it?” Luna said.

Slytherin:

“Did somebody hear something?” Draco asked.

“Mm, no, don’t think so Draco,” Pansy said.

“Why, did _you_ hear something Draco?” Marcus asked with a smug grin, it wasn’t often they got to make fun of outsiders.

“I suppose not,” the Auror rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air before going to the last house on the list, Hufflepuff.

At Hufflepuff now, once again the same routine; he asked the same boring questions, “Does anyone know anything about the odd behavior of the Dementors?” however, unlike at the other houses, this time he was met with stifled laughter. “What’s funny? Do we know something in here?”

“They’re _Dementors,_ your question is too broad,” Wayne Hopkins told him.

“None of the other houses laughed,”

“Well, they either have less of a sense of humor, or they’re just more polite,” Leilani told him.

“Gryffindor mockingly tried to dig more information out of me, Ravenclaw tried to educate me on the subject of Dementors and Slytherin pretended I was invisible.”

“Yeah, that sounds like them,” Jo grinned, “Sorry guy, we don’t know anything about Dementor oddities.”

“Well, where do you suggest I look next?”

Jo and Leili exchanged grins before looking back at the Auror and saying, “Ravenclaw.”


	54. A Date

March 12th, 1994

Fifth Year

-

Hufflepuff vs. Slytherin.   
  


Jo twirled her bat around her hand as the two teams waited to be released. Captain Flint was smirking at her. She gave him a dark grin back. She couldn’t wait to flatten him. Even if Hufflepuff lost the match, which they usually did, she always enjoyed flying circles around him. Madam Hooch gave a blast on her whistle and they pushed off. 

Madam Hooch kicked open the chest, three balls soared out and she threw the Quaffle into the air beginning the game. 

“That’s Flint with the Quaffle,” Jordan said into the speaker, “Rotten start for Hufflepuff. Oh but Hufflepuff has taken possession! Chaser Malcolm Preece dodges a bludger as he makes his way to the rings, nice move there, Malcolm! He shoots! He Scores! 10 points for Hufflepuff!”

Jo whacked away a Bludger mid-happy dance. Slytherin took possession of the Quaffle and their beaters slammed a Bludger near her seeker, she dove in front of Cedric and redirected it towards Captain Flint, “Keep your players bats away from my seeker!” she shouted. Captain Flint’s answering grin gleamed as he shot forward. He zoomed past her, leaving their teams to duke it out behind him, before wheeling around and coming up alongside her. He slammed into her side and Lee’s commentary hyper focused on them.

“Flint rams into Montgomery! She drops away but he’s close behind!”

“What _are_ you doing?” She asked him when he once again glued himself to her side.

“Go out with me,” he said, his voice a growl in her ear.

She laughed at him, “Why the hell should I? You’re the _opposition_!”

“Free Food.”

She glared at him, “Have you been talking to Leilani?” Now _he_ laughed. “I’m not going out with you, bub!”

Flint grinned at her and stayed glued to her side, swerve for swerve, dodge for dodge. 

“Flint isn’t leaving her alone! Slytherin is up by twenty points; Montgomery can’t use her bat to defend her team, is this some new tactic?”

“Tell you what, _Captain_ , if _we_ win this match fair and square, I’ll go out with you. If you cheat, or let us win, I will hunt you down and Leili will make you regret it. Deal?”

Marcus stuck out his gloved hand, “Deal.” They shook. He flew off and barked orders to his own team. 

“Capitan Flint and Beater Montgomery seem to have struck some kind of accord! Is this the end of the game?” 

Jo grinned as she settled low on her broom, one hand on the stick, the other on her bat. “ _RAMP IT UP, ‘PUFFS_!” she barked over the wind in her ears. She wasn’t Captain, but they listened to her like she was, they trained like she was, they responded to her order like she was. The Puffs kicked it into high gear; they put on a show and they kicked some Slytherin butt.

“Look at the Hufflepuffs go! They’ve stepped it up! There’s Montgomery beating away the Bludgers, Flint has the Quaffle--But Malcolm takes it! Hufflepuff is in possession, they’re neck and neck. Flint rams the Hufflepuff Chaser! Malcolm loses the Quaffle! He dives but Flint takes it back!” 

Jo punted the Bludger to the other beater who slammed the ball into the side of Flint’s head. When he looked around for the offending beater Jo zoomed past urging him to follow, he took the bait. Malcolm recaptured the Quaffle and the Hufflepuff stands erupted in cheers. “I don’t believe it! Captain Flint won’t leave Montgomery alone and she’s using it to her advantage! It was a nice save by Malcolm and another ten points for Hufflepuff! If they can get the Snitch before Slytherin they have a chance at winning this!”

Keeper Fleet was circling the posts while Seeker/Captain Diggory hovered out of the way, waiting for the Snitch to show itself. “The Slytherins have taken possession of the Quaffle and the Hufflepuffs are creating one hell of an obstacle course. If Montague or Warrington want to get the Quaffle through those goals, they’re going to have to go through the Hufflepuffs first! Good luck guys! I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of that team!”

They tried. But the maze to the posts went something like this, Jo’s fellow Beater at the start let them in but beat a Bludger in after them, it sent them spinning into the Chasers who took the Quaffle and passed it back and forth like a great game of monkey in the middle. One chaser dropped out leaving the other two to keep the Slytherin boys busy while they snuck over and scored a goal past the Slytherin Keeper who was too busy watching Montague and Warrington get their butts kicked.

“Another 10 points for Hufflepuff! And Diggory has seen something! He’s found the Snitch!” Jo’s fellow Beater left her to help defend the goals so he could follow Cedric and beat off any Bludgers going his way. Also to beat any Bludgers towards Malfoy who was racing Cedric to the little gold ball. “Seeker Malfoy has also seen the Snitch!” The two seekers spiraled through the air, like two sides of a bullet, each with a hand outstretched. Yellow and green blurred together and then fingers closed around the ball and the stands erupted in cheers and jeers.

“I don’t believe it! He’s caught it! He’s caught the Snitch! Hufflepuff wins the game!”

Marcus and Jo landed and she looked at him, glowing in the light of victory. “Where and when?”

“Next Hogsmeade Weekend, The Three Broomsticks. Leave your friend at home.”

“June 10th. Leili has better things to do than babysit you, don’t worry,” she gave him a smirk and walked off, putting just a little more swing in her hips than normal—just a little.


	55. Faith

Early April, 1994

Fifth Year

\--

Two years of attempts and so far, nothing, no sign or glimmer of an animal form for either Jo or Leilani. This year was feeling particularly crowded, between the escape of murderer Sirius Black from Azkaban and their 5th year O.W.L exams and crammed in between, their attempts to become Animagi. 

The girls knew going in that this was not an instant gratification goal, but, at times their patience wore thin and they didn’t much feel like the patient Hufflepuffs, unafraid of toil, of the sorting hat’s song. 

“Professor McGonagall?” Leili asked one day after class, “I was reading about Animagi over the summer and in my studying for the O.W.L’s, I wondered what exactly one would have to do to become an animagus?”

“Purely hypothetical, correct?” Leili nodded. “Well, it’s a very long process and one needs a certain level of skill at Transfiguration as becoming an Animagus is a kind of self-Transfiguration. This is way beyond the Ordinary Wizarding Level, of course.”

“Right, of course. I was studying and going through my text when I saw a page on Animagi and I was just wondering. Can I ask, what it would take for someone with my skill level at Transfiguration to become an Animagus? Again, pure curiosity.”

“A person would have to work very hard and improve his or her skill level at transfiguration to successfully complete living Transfigurations. If this were something you were interested in, I could offer you extra lessons. After you take and pass your Transfiguration O.W.L with at least an Exceeds Expectations, and if you were to continue taking and doing well in NEWT Level Transfiguration, of course,” Professor McGonagall said. She was torn between making her disapproval at Leilani trying to become an Animagus on her own known, especially with the O.W.L’s so close, and pleasure at the girl’s interest in such a difficult skill. 

Leilani grinned, “Yes, Professor, Thank you, Professor!” She turned and walked very quickly out of the classroom before running down the hall to catch up to Jo. “I need you to teach me everything you know about Transfiguration!” she panted.

“What did you do?” Jo asked warily, Leili’s answering grin made Jo think that she must’ve done something very clever indeed.

“I asked Professor McGonagall what a person would have to do to get her to teach them to become an Animagus. Well, basically anyway, it took a bit more finesse than that but essentially I asked for private Animagus tutoring.”

“Oh my god, what did she say?”

“Pass the O.W.L’s with an Exceeds Expectations or better and continue into the NEWT level class and do well in it and then extra lessons with her specifically for this. So, I need to know what you know about transfiguration. I’ll teach you anything you want in return,” Leili bargained.

“Potions, and I’m not sure how to teach you _5 years_ of Transfiguration in _two_ _months_ …”

“I have faith in you,” Leili told her.


	56. Career Day

April 8th, 1994

5th year

\--

Leilani slipped into Greenhouse 3 and took up a stool across from Professor Sprout. She was nervous, not that there was any reason to _be_ nervous; after all it wasn’t like this meeting decided what she was going to do with the rest of her life or anything... except, well, it kind of did. 

“Well Leilani, this meeting is to talk over any career ideas you might have, and to help you decide which subjects you should continue into sixth and seventh years,” Professor Sprout said, plunking a bowl of Screechsnap seeds in front of Leili. “Go ahead and plant these if you’re nervous. Sometimes it helps to work and talk, I find. Now, have you had any thoughts about what you would like to do after you leave Hogwarts?”

“Um,” she said, as she gently planted the little red seeds. Professor Sprout said nothing, merely continued to harvest seeds and wait for Leili to answer. “Well, there are two things I’ve sort’ve been thinking about. One of them is to open a tutoring business for Hogwarts kids where they can come and get a little help with their homework or help studying for tests. I thought that might be kinda fun.”

“You wouldn’t want to be a teacher?” Professor Sprout asked. 

“Not really, plus...I don’t really think I’m all that...qualified,” Leili replied, her voice dropping as she neared the end of the sentence.

“I think you’d make a wonderful teacher, Leilani.” Leili shrugged, the praise was nice but she didn’t feel she really deserved it. “And what was your other idea?”

Leili took a deep breath and said very quietly and very quickly, “IthinkI’dliketogointowandcraft.”

Professor Sprout blinked as she tried to work out what Leili had just said. “...You’d like to go into wandcraft?” Leili nodded. “That’s a _wonderful_ idea, dear.” 

“But see, I don’t know that much about it and I’m really finicky about things like this. I mean, two years ago I had my heart set on becoming a dolphin trainer! But… I really like the looks on kids faces when their wand chooses them, especially the muggleborns, it’s just like this whole thing suddenly becomes real and amazing and _brilliant_ and I really like _wands,_ I mean you have a stick and a bit of dragon or unicorn or phoenix or whatever and you put them together and they do magic. I think that’s really kind of amazing.”

Leili had unconsciously stopped planting by now and was using her hands to emphasize as she talked, which she did fairly rapidly and as a result she had also stopped breathing regularly. 

“But I’d also like to do the tutoring business thing because the most business a wand maker gets is going to be around September when all the kids come in to buy their wands and while the rest of the year will see some people coming in because of a broken or dying wand I can’t imagine it’ll be that much or that often. But with the tutoring business I can help the kids here figure out how to enjoy subjects like potions or charms or Herbology—Divination is out though, I _do not_ understand one _tea leaf_ of divination—and I think that would be kinda fun.”

“You’ve put quite a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”

Leili shrugged, “I’m a researcher. Plus, it’s interesting.”

“Well, for wandcraft you’ll need top marks in Care of Magical creatures, Charms, Herbology--to teach you how to discern magical plants from non, of course--you’ll need a proficiency in Transfiguration, you’ll benefit from Alchemy, they go into the transmutation of substances, and a Magical theory class. You may also want to consider a drawing class.”

“Drawing? Why?”

“To help you create the wand’s appearance, of course.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”

“You’ll also need an apprenticeship with a wandmaker. It usually lasts about a year but you may find that your mentor has more to teach you than can be taught in a year.”

“I don’t suppose Ollivander would take me,” Leili said, half hoping, half scoffing.

“It’s very unlikely, but it could be possible; _if_ you impress him. He doesn’t have any children of his own you know; he may be looking for someone to take over the business when he retires.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

Jo was next and the conversation started very much the same way, with a bowl of screechsnap seeds and Professor Sprout’s patient ear.

“I want to help people,” Jo said after a moment. Her hands were in the bowl but she wasn’t planting the seeds, just running her fingers through them. “But I’m also really interested in Magizoology, I’d like to help animals, too. …I don’t suppose there’s a job where I can do both?”

“Well, there _are_ Aurors who dabble in specialized branches of Magizoology, it’s not common but it has happened. Do you have a favorite creature?”

Jo sat in thought a long time, “Do I have to pick _one_?” she asked eventually.

“No, you can go into a more generalized branch, if you want.”

Jo was quiet again, while Professor Sprout dug up the recommended class list. Then, “Bowtruckles. Wild Bowtruckles are vicious little beasties; I like that. But I think I want to do more general Magizoology, I’d like to work with all magical animals, not just Bowtruckles.”

“Alright then, for a career in the Auror Magizoology department, you’ll need “Exceeds Expectations” or better in Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Herbology. It’s rather the same as regular Auror classes, the real difference will lie in how they train you when you've been accepted. This will not be easy, you understand? The Auror department takes only the best, those working with beasts even more so.”

“I can do it.”

“That’s the spirit! You’ll share some classes with Leilani, which I’m sure you’ll both appreciate; no one likes to tread difficult paths alone.”

Dismissed, Jo hurried back to the common room to compare schedules and notes with Leili, they were pleased to see they’d be sharing five classes, since Jo decided to also take a drawing class, to help her draw maps and really visualize things; a good idea for both Auror and Magizooloist training.


	57. Earplugs

Mid-May 1994  
Fifth Year  
-

A crying first year girl shook Jo’s shoulder frantically; Jo peeled her eyes open, “Hey… What’s up?” Lighting flashed and thunder exploded outside and the girl buried her face in Jo’s sheets. 

“You afraid of thunderstorms?” the 11 year old nodded. “Alright, c’mon, let’s get you back in bed,” Jo whispered as she climbed out of bed and headed for her trunk. Opening it, she reached inside and pulled out what any Muggle-born would recognize as a pair of earplugs and a sleep mask. 

“Jo? What’s up?” Leili asked tiredly

“It’s nothing. I’ve got this one, go back to sleep,” Jo took the girl back to her dormitory and her own bed. Once settled, Jo put the brightly colored pieces of foam in the girl’s ears and slipped the mask over her small face. She knelt by the bed and stroked the girl’s hair until she fell asleep. 

It was not the first time a younger Hufflepuff had sought out Jo or Leilani in the middle of the night, nor would it be the last time either girl would fall asleep at their charge’s bedside.


	58. Rat

June 5th, 1994

Fifth Year

\--

“I smell a rat,” were the first words out of Jo’s mouth when they walked into their Common room.

Leili, in all seriousness replied, “That’s because, Jo, it _is_ a rat…” she gestured to Scabbers, dangling from Artemis’ beak by his tail and squeaking madly. When Artemis dropped the rat, gold-eyed Morgan slammed her paw down on his tail when he tried to escape.

Jo rolled her eyes, “No, no, it’s a proverbial rat.”

Leili grinned and asked, “You sure? 'Cause _that_ is a very literal rat, right there.”

Jo glowered at her before asking, “Isn’t there some spell you can use? C’mon _Charm Queen_ …”

“Jo! You know as much as I do about charms!” She protested, but anyone could see that the epithet pleased her.

“Somehow, I very much doubt that. So, _is_ there something you can use?”

“I guess… there’s ‘Homenum Revelio’ but it’ll only work if there’s a masked human presence,” Leili sighed, drawing her wand.

“Great, try it.”

Leili cast the charm and if you looked closely you could have seen the air around Scabbers ripple like a stone skipping on a lake. “Jo,” she started slowly, “do you remember the spell that idiot of a professor said could cure a werewolf?”

Jo slowly drew her wand, “Yeah. _Homorphus_!” A smart rap of her wand on the rat transformed him into a very ugly man. He shuddered and sniveled and shivered, making weird noises all the while.

“Well, it looks like you were right,” Leili said, brandishing her wand at the no longer rat. “Who are you?” she demanded, both Morgan and Artemis poised to attack.

“P-P-P-Peter P-Pett-tt-igrew.” He wailed, flinching from her wand, “P-please! I’m Ron’s rat! I’m a good pet! Please don’t h-hurt me-he-he-he!” he cried.

“What is an _animagus_ doing pretending to be a 13 year old’s pet?” Leili asked the short, fat, blading little man, before she started whispering his name to herself, over and over.

“Whaddya think? Should we take the rat that isn’t to Dumbledore?” Jo asked.

Finally, the reason for the name’s familiarity dawned on her. “No, I think we should feed the rat to a wolf,” Leili answered darkly, her eyes narrowed at the rat-man.

Pettigrew shuddered again and wailed harder. Jo conjured up a cage, opened the bottom and stood, poised while Leilani traced a shield shape with her wand, canceling all enchantments with a simple _finite incantatem._ The second the rat was a rat again Jo slammed the cage down on top of him before he had a chance to run away. Very carefully, she slid the cage off the table, while lifting the bottom so that she could close it with a _snick_ without Peter/Scabbers escaping.

Cage in hand the girls made their way to professor Lupin’s office where Jo plunked the cage on his desk and asked, “Lose something?”

“Jocelyn! Leilani! Really!” Lupin exclaimed. He knew the girls were a tad unbalanced but this was extreme, even for them.

“The rat is an animagus. Says his name is Peter Pettigrew. Wanna do something ‘bout it?” Leili asked. 

Professor Lupin looked at her in shock. 

“I’ve heard stories, ok? The night V—” Leili sighed, 13 years later and she _still_ had a problem saying the name. She could handle hearing it, but saying it _felt_ wrong, “ _Voldemort_ vanished Sirius Black went crazy and killed a whole bunch of people including his friend, Peter Pettigrew. Imagine _my_ surprise when Ron’s rat Scabbers—who is _lucky_ he hasn’t been eaten by my cat or Jo’s owl yet—turns out to be an animagus calling himself Peter Pettigrew.”

“Harry mentioned something about seeing Pettigrew on the map…” Lupin started.

“Map? What map?” Jo asked, watching Lupin closely, there was a look on his face that bugged her. He seemed… sad. Maybe even a bit heartbroken.

“Never mind that. What do we do about _him_?” Leili jabbed a finger at the rat that both was and wasn’t.

“I’ll take him to Dumbledore in the morning, we’ll take it from there.” A series of squeaks emanated from the cage. “...How did you know that he was not your normal pet rat?”

“We didn’t. Or well, _I_ didn’t. Jo thought something was wrong with him. I don’t know how. She thought it was unfathomably creepy for him to be pretending to be a thirteen year old’s pet rat and sleeping in his room and so we ventured to stop him.” Leili explained. 

Lupin looked to Jo who was looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. He waited.

And waited.

And waited. 

Finally she huffed an annoyed breath and said, “I get these feelings sometimes. Vibes or whatever. And they don’t leave me alone until I do something about them. And there was a vibe that has been gnawing at me for three years. Three _years_ , I’ve ignored it but this year it got _worse_. And it’s always had something to do with that _rat_. So I convinced Leili to help me get him. And then today, he was in our dorm. I don’t know if he was there because Morgan and Artemis decided to put me out of my misery or if he was sneaking around our room on his own. So we decided to bring the little pedophile to you.” There was a mass increase in squeaking at the term ‘pedophile’, almost like the rat-man was trying to deny it.

“I see. Very interesting. Well, thank you for apprehending him, I’m sure Dumbledore will be very interested in what he has to say for himself. Especially considering he’s _supposed_ to be dead.” 

Peter fell dead silent. 

“Goodnight, girls,” he dismissed them and they turned to head back to their dormitory. 

Lupin cast a containment charm on the cage as the girls left. An hour later, the birdcage Pettigrew was in fell to the floor and Pettigrew wheeled his way out the door by rolling the cage like a giant hamster wheel. From there, Peter made his way back to Ron.

“Damn it Peter!” Lupin swore as he chased after the surprisingly fast cage.


	59. Warning

June 9th, 1994

Fifth Year

\--

Jo and Leili had gone down to see Hagrid, Leili had left her book bag behind during lessons, and check on the results of Buckbeak’s second appeal. They knocked on the door and a sad, helpless looking Hagrid opened it, “Oh, hello you two. Nice of yeh to visit, we lost the case and Buckbeak’s just been—he can sense it y’know, intelligent creatures, Hippogriffs.”

“We’re so sorry, Hagrid,” Jo said while Leili tried to keep from tearing up. They didn’t know Buckbeak well, but Hagrid spoke so highly of him and it was a shame that one spoiled boy’s father could ruin two lives with his silver tongue and the swish of an axe. There was nothing the Slytherpuff Alliance could do for this. 

“Is there anything we can do, to help?” Leili asked; they didn’t have long before sunset but they’d do what they could.

“’Fraid not. What’re yeh doin’ down here anyway? It’s nearly sunset!”

“I forgot my bag last lesson, came to grab it. Jo wanted to come along, safety in numbers.” The girls didn’t know that the Gryffindor trio had just snuck out the back door.

“Ah,” Hagrid tossed back a blanket and unearthed Leili’s bag, “Here ya go."

“Thanks, Hagrid.” 

There was a knock at the door.

“Yeh’d best be going,” he sniffled as he ushered them out the door. 

“Oh, Hello Professor Dumbledore, Minister,” Leili said politely.

“You know, Minister, Buckbeak doesn’t deserve this, he’s a good Hippogriff. It wasn’t _his_ fault Malfoy decided to play chicken,” Jo said.

“The deed is done young lady, the appeal has come and gone and was declared in favor of execution. Now, you’d best see yourselves up to the castle, there you go, go on, go on.”

“Miss Akina, Miss Montgomery,” Dumbledore twinkled. 

They bade Hagrid and Buckbeak farewell and started up towards the castle. 

“Can I kill the Minister?” Jo whispered when they were out of earshot.

“How do you feel about Dementors?” Leili asked back.

“Not favorably.”

“Then, no, you may not kill him.”

“How about if I punch him?”

“Probably not a good idea.”

“What if I just broke his nose just _a little_?” 

Suddenly, they heard the frantic squeaking of Scabbers as the trio was heading back up, hidden from sight by the invisibility cloak. Their voices, however, floated up to the girls and they turned around just in time to see Ron emerge from seemingly nowhere to chase after something small, presumably Scabbers/Peter. Then, in a flash of orange fur, Crookshanks leapt after the rat. 

“Ron!” they heard Hermione yell before she and Harry also appeared out of thin air and ran full tilt boogie back down the hill after Ron into the fast approaching darkness.

“What are those kids doing?” Jo asked. They were just about to lose sight of them when they saw a flash of red hair fly through the air. And then they heard him scream as a shadow advanced on him. 

They heard the telltale snap of bone and more screaming as the shadow dragged him towards the Whomping Willow where they disappeared. “We need to get help, _now_.” The girls took off running, across the bridge down the path, into the castle and through the corridor.

Their legs took them to the Potions classroom where they found Professor Snape, “Professor!” Jo called as they reached the doorway. 

Their momentum carried them into the classroom and to the desk where Professor Snape stood watching them. The last time one of them had come literally running to him, she’d had valuable information and by the looks of them, this time was going to be no different.

“It’s Harry, Ron and Hermione, sir,” Jo said in a rush of breath, “Ron chased after his rat, Scabbers, actually Peter Pettigrew in the guise of a rat,” Snape was moving towards the door at the mention of Pettigrew’s name, “and he was attacked by something large and black, probably the size of a large dog,” she would realize later how accurate that description was. “It took him to the Whomping Willow and Harry and Hermione tried to follow. We lost sight of them and you’re the first teacher we’ve found to tell,” Jo finished. Snape was out the door and down the hall before she fully finished.

Snape hurried down the hall, going to rescue three of his least favorite students. 

He immobilized the tree and slid through the hidden tunnel underneath. He picked up the discarded invisibility cloak and used it as he pushed open the door and slid inside to where Lupin and Black were telling the story of their school days and how James Potter had pulled him away from the Whomping Willow Branches.

“Why does saving them always include running?” Leili gasped as she caught her breath. 

Jo didn’t laugh. She paced the classroom, chewing on her thumbnail. “Something’s wrong.”

Leili sat on a desk and watched her best friend pace. Her stomach twisted into knots. “What’s going on, Jo?”

“I don’t _know_. Something to do with Lupin.” Her vibes were almost never specific, just a gut feeling of wrongness. Occasionally, the feeling was tied to a person, but rarely. There was a long howl from the direction of the forest and both girls figured it out at the same time. “ _Werewolf_ ,” Jo breathed as Leili grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the room.

“We _can’t_ go down there. If he smells or hears us, we’re dead; you can’t hide from a wolf. Professor Snape is down there; He’ll keep them safe. Ok?”

Jo stared at Leili, jerking to stop. “Come on! There’s a _hundred_ different ways we can do this!”

“Like _what_?!”

“We'll get some chicken or I don't know, something meaty and smelly, charm it to look like a deer and use it as a decoy. Or maybe charm a scent—can you charm scents?—and use that to throw him off! We can’t just do nothing, I’m _sick_ of doing nothing!”

Leili shifted from foot to foot before asking, “How do we get to the kitchens from here?”

Jo instantly took control, “This way.”

They begged different bits of meat off the house elves, one volunteered an entire meat pie and with both of them together and quite a lot of muttering they managed to fashion the meat into a deer shape and then with a careful, _careful_ concentration and care and frankly imagination Leili managed to get it to look like a doe with an illusion spell she was very much not supposed to know. She managed to get the thing onto its hooves and—while looking like a puppet master at a marionette show—managed to get it to move.

“If Lupin doesn’t buy this, I blame you,”

“Yeah, yeah, blame me later, let’s go!” And they went, clumsily with much annoyed swearing, but they went.

Jo _wingardium leviosa_ -ed their deer down steps and Leili threw her whole body into making the thing move. 

They hurried down to the Whomping Willow only to find Lupin fully transformed, if it weren’t for the kids standing warily around him, they’d have thought he was a regular wolf. 

Struck by an idea, Jo started pulling up handfuls of wet grass, tossing them to one side she dug up piles of mud. Without waiting, she began to smear it on Leili’s cheeks and neck, her arms, any bit of exposed skin that might give off a scent, she also shoved some into Leili’s shirt sleeves. 

Leili bit back a yelp as the cold muck encountered her armpits. Jo did the same thing to her own skin, trying to cover as much of their shampoo and deodorant smell as she could. Snape was unconscious, floating in front of the rag-tag group. Pettigrew was nowhere to be seen, but Ron was handcuffed to Lupin. The big black dog was standing on his back legs, swatting at Lupin, who had broken out of the manacle around his paw.

Lupin snapped at the dog and the dog clamped his jaws around Lupin’s neck. Lupin didn’t like that, he tore free of the dog and they stood: snapping, clawing, tearing at each other. Leili sent her makeshift doe into the fray; the doe circled the dog and the werewolf before heading off into the woods. “Get the kids out of here,” Leili instructed Jo.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“ _Do you have a better idea?_ ” she hissed.

“Actually, yes.” Jo pointed her wand at Professor Snape, “ _Ennervate._ ” Snape regained consciousness, snarled “ _Potter,_ ” and threw himself in front of the kids when he realized there was a werewolf on the loose.

“Oh. Good plan.” The wolf tore after the deer and the dog shot a look at Snape guarding the trio before chasing after Lupin. The girls followed the dog into the forest and lost him. They didn’t know which way Lupin had gone. 

“I’ve lost the werewolf!” Leili said.

“ _How do you lose a werewolf?!_ ”

“It’s easier than you’d think!” The deer was in pieces because Lupin was not himself and was thinking only of food, which the deer smelled like. They were left standing alone in the Forbidden Forest. Later, Sirius would find himself having to explain how a deer-that-wasn’t- _actually_ -a-deer managed to distract and then out-run (for a time) a hungry werewolf.

Suddenly the sounds of a dog in pain echoed through the forest and the clearing and the world went cold. The girls ran towards the sound, they heard Harry try to cast a spell, the same spell over and over again. When they reached the lake and saw the Dementors sucking the souls out of Harry and a too-thin man they shouted, “ _Protego!_ ” and _“Repello Inimicum!_ ”

The Dementors moved out of the way but they seemed to be waiting. Biding their time until the shield charms collapsed. They swiped at the shields, pushing them, testing them, _weakening_ them. 

Then, a voice that sounded like Harry’s came from the other side of the lake and a bright animal, glowing silvery blue galloped towards the Dementors, ramming them with great, branching antlers and throwing them away. The Dementors fled and the stag eventually faded.

Snape found them in the forest. The girls had kept the shield charms up but opened a hole wide enough to let Snape through when he found them, what felt like hours later. 

“You should not have come down here,” he said. 

They didn’t respond. 

They followed him up to the hospital wing, with Harry and Snape’s new prisoner in tow. An unconscious Sirius Black was hardly a threat, but it was glaringly obvious that Snape didn’t like him; he kept letting him float headfirst into trees.

They allowed Madam Pomfrey to look them over for injuries after she’d treated Ron, Harry and Hermione; they were unscathed. She’d sent them off to bed with a sleeping draught, which they obediently took— _after_ scrubbing their skins almost raw in the shower.

When they woke the next morning, Jo was almost sick with the feeling of Déjà vu. They didn’t know that Hermione and Harry had turned back time to rescue Buckbeak and Sirius. 

They didn’t _know_ that Harry was the one who cast the Patronus—though they did suspect (based on the voice they heard casting the spell). They _really_ didn’t know that Harry could just make out their outlines in the wand light from across the lake. They couldn’t know that Harry was reminded of the two voices and shoes he’d seen in the chamber last year. 

They’d be delighted to know that while they puzzled him to no end, their identities remained secret. They did know that Jo’s Déjà vu subsided as soon as the clock struck the hour they had returned to their dorm from the lake. They also knew that that was _highly_ suspicious.


	60. Idiots

June 10th, 1994

Fifth year

\--

It was the last week of the school year and the grounds were buzzing with the news, Professor Lupin was a _werewolf_. A _werewolf_ had been teaching the students. What if he’d lost control? What if he’d bitten somebody? How could Dumbledore have allowed it? But he was the best Defense teacher they’d ever had, so what if he had a disease that had been foisted upon him? He’d taken steps to ensure the safety of his students and he was being kicked out because one teacher held a childhood grudge. How was that fair?

Malfoy was furious over Buckbeak’s escape, Snape was furious over Sirius Black’s escape. There was a ripple of concern over that last—after all, he was a deranged murderer, wasn’t he?

Though the girls didn’t know it, Sirius and Buckbeak were in hiding together and Harry now had one more piece of his father to carry around with him, not only was his patronus a stag but his father’s best friend had now become one of his. The girls also didn’t know that Sirius was innocent, or that Peter Pettigrew had been responsible for the death of Harry’s parents. They had their suspicions that something had gone sideways, but they couldn’t prove anything. “Why didn’t they just check Black’s wand for last spell cast?” Jo asked

“I don’t know. Maybe they assumed he used a different wand? I mean they had a street full of people swearing up and down that he did it, and they had Pettigrew’s finger as evidence, I guess they didn’t think they needed much more than that,” Leili shrugged.

“That’s dumb.”

“Wizards, for all their magic, for all their brilliance, can be idiots."


	61. Suspicion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, year 6 here we go. This is where the Relationships start to unfurl in earnest. Kudos, comments are both welcome and appreciated.

September 1st, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

“Wonder who our new Defense Against Professor is gonna be…” Leilani mused aloud before the ceiling cracked loudly. There were surprised shrieks as students felt the first drops of rain. A man hobbling on a walking stick that looked like it was a branch from a young Whomping Willow raised his wand and threw an impressive, wordless spell at the ceiling. 

“Nice entrance. I think that’s your answer Leili,” Jo heard Leilani’s irritated scoff and turned to see her hands balled on her hips and glaring at the ceiling. “Leili! Stop glaring at the ceiling.” Leilani thumped her cheek on her fist mumbling something about wanting it to rain inside. “There’s our new professor. Too bad Lupin couldn’t come back.”

“He’d have been sacked or something the second some of the snootier parents got wind of it,” Leilani muttered with a sigh.

“I know, but still. He was awesome.” Suddenly, Jo’s eyes narrowed as she watched Dumbledore embrace Moody. “Something’s… _off_ about this guy.”

That got Leili’s attention. She picked her head up off her hand and looked at Jo, “Hmm? What do you mean?”

“Look at him. Something’s not right.”

“I’m looking. _I_ don’t see anything, but I’ll help you keep an eye on him if you think we need to,” Leilani offered.

“Yeah. Another set of eyes can’t hurt,” Jo mused distractedly.

“Hopefully it’s nothing,”

“It won’t be,” Jo said.

“We don’t _know_ that…” Leilani said, trying to remain optimistic.

“In the last 6 years, when has it _ever_ turned out to be nothing?”

Leili opened her mouth to reply but then closed it with a _click_.

“My point exactly.”


	62. Sorrows

September 3rd, 1994

\--

It was their first week of their sixth year at Hogwarts and over the summer Jo had acquired a fan boy. Now she sat on her bed in their dorm turning the latest letter into a paper airplane.

Suddenly, she stood and walked to the dorm door. Leili peeked out from under her arm, which she’d thrown across her eyes when she’d flopped, back first, on to the familiar bed. “Where ya goin’?”

“To drown my sorrows.”

Leili snorted, “You don’t drink.” Jo shrugged and continued walking, Leili rolled off her bed and followed. The girls walked down to the Black Lake and Leili watched as Jo chucked the paper plane over it. 

“Drowning your sorrows, Jo?” She asked with a grin as a long tentacle reached up out of the depths and caught the little airplane, dragging it into the depths of the lake.

“Well, I can’t very well drown the boy, now can I?”


	63. Unforgivable

September 7th, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

“You’ll be learning how to resist the Imperius curse, today,” Moody told Hufflepuff and Gryffindor 6th years. 

It was their second class with Moody and Jo stared at him, highly suspicious as he turned from them and took a gulp from his hip flask. Leili tried not to fidget; she didn’t like the sound of this lesson. 

“Alright, who’s first?” He asked and the air was thick with silence as the students tried to become invisible. 

“No takers, eh?” he grunted, his blue eye swiveling around the room looking through the rows of students before settling upon Leili who was trying her best not to look terrified. “You there,” he lifted his roster, “Leilani…Akina, is it?”

Leili nodded and Jo stood up.

“Too late to volunteer, missy,” he told her and Jo shot a glance at Leili, whose spine straightened and chin lifted. 

Leili had a defiant streak she kept secreted away for special occasions. Usually such an occasion was constituted in a bad day with her sister or someone telling her she couldn't do something because she wasn't smart enough or disciplined enough. In the case of the former, things usually got huffy. In the case of the latter two, she went out of her way to prove them wrong.

“ _Imperio._ ”

A content happiness bubbled inside her. It started in her stomach and worked its way to her toes and fingers and her ears where it tingled—not unpleasantly—trying to override her stubborn non-cooperation _._

“Stand up.” Moody ordered. Leili sat there stiff as a board, the only outward sign that she was fighting this with everything she had. 

Jo’s jaw was gritted so tightly she thought she could hear her teeth groan under the pressure while one knee bounced violently enough that her inkwell rattled. She hated every second of this, watching Leili fight a losing battle and not being allowed to help—she didn’t need to be used for _crucio_ practice to be tortured.

“C’mon, c’mon, stand up,” Moody coxed and Leilani stood. 

Jo’s hands clenched tighter on themselves, somehow managing to pop a few of the joints.

“Let’s try some gymnastics, shall we?” Moody asked when she stood, either not noticing, or not caring that her right hand was gripping the table for dear life.

With a flick of his wand she jumped, arcing back. 

Her left arm swung back behind her head as her feet left the ground, twisting her right arm violently when her hand managed to hang onto the table edge. Her shoulder and elbow spiraled out of their sockets and her wrist shattered, forcing her to release the table, which clattered noisily to the floor. 

Landing first on the heel of her left hand and then crashing down to her knees after they buckled, she broke out of the curse with a scream that drowned out Jo’s chair falling over as she shot to her feet. 

There were sympathetic murmurs from the students as Moody laughed delightedly, “Good! Very good, you managed to break out! Well done! See yourself to the hospital wing. Next!” 

Leilani wished she were unconscious; instead she was about ten seconds from tears and curled into a ball on the floor. 

Jo took two steps towards Leili and found herself Moody’s next test-subject. 

“Oh, good; a volunteer! _Imperio_! Let’s see, give us a turn,” Jo didn’t budge and instead watched as Leili slowly stood. “Ooh, another fighter! How promising! Bend your knees,” they bent, “and _turn_!” 

Jo refused, straightening and locking her knees. 

Taking in a deep, hissing breath, Leilani pinned her dislocated elbow to her stomach using her other arm and gently rocked back onto her feet. Now successfully standing, she turned too quickly towards the door, jostling her arm. Agony lanced through it. With a pained gasp, her knees buckled a second time and she fell to the floor, unconscious. 

Jo couldn’t break out of the curse fast enough to reach her. 

Luckily, Fred Weasley was sitting nearby. He dove from his chair; everyone was torn between watching him as his chair smashed to the ground and watching Jo as she fought against the curse. 

With the reflexes of a big brother and a beater, Fred caught Leilani before her head hit the ground. Wrapping her left arm around his own neck and folding her broken arm across her ribs, he carefully tucked her head beneath his chin and slid one arm beneath her knees before walking briskly out of the room with his other arm around her upper back.

Meanwhile, two voices in Jo’s head were arguing. 

Moody’s voice urged her to turn, while her own voice stubbornly repeated ‘no’. The voices got louder and louder until they were shouting, ‘TURN!’ his voice screamed in her head.

“NO!” she shouted aloud, snapping herself out of the curse. She’d always hated being told what to do.

“Very good! You can sit back down now.”

Jo shot a look at the door Fred had carried Leili out of but took her seat. She knew Leili would be safe with the Gryff. 

Oh but she _wanted_ to go. 

She also wanted to claw Moody’s face off; sadly, _that_ was not an option.

Indecision warred until her suspicion of Moody won out. She didn’t trust him an inch and she had a responsibility to make sure he didn’t ‘accidentally’ kill someone by making them jump out a window or something.

Student after student was cursed and most blindly obeyed but every now and then one of them would fight. Some were very good at not obeying, a few as good as or better than Jo. There really were a few naturals in this class, she mused in the very back of her head. 

Luckily no one else suffered broken bones like Leili. The minute class was over Jo raced down to the hospital wing and found Leilani sitting up in bed, arm bandaged from palm to shoulder, a sling waiting on a pillow in her lap. The Gryff was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m fine,” she called as Jo ran through the doors. “I’m fine,” she repeated as Jo wrapped her arms around her neck. “Gently!” Leili yelped and Jo loosened her near strangle-hold. “Dislocated shoulder and elbow, a broken wrist, a sprained thumb, a couple of fractures. …I’m going to be bruised and sore a while. And it's my dominant arm too! Taking notes in class is going to be interesting. But Madam Pomfrey patched me up no problem. She wants to see me again in two weeks.” She huffed a sigh, “How’d you do?” 

Jo let go to sit facing Leilani, with their legs folded criss-cross applesauce, their knees touched and she recounted the rest of the lesson. “I don’t trust Professor Moody. You _don’t_ cast these curses on a bunch of 16 year olds. It’s unforgivable,” Jo said, leaning her forehead on Leili’s uninjured shoulder. 

“I know.” A moment passed before Leili asked, “Hey, Jo?”

“Hmm?”

“…How’d I get here?”

“You mean you _don’t_ _know_?” Jo snickered and Leili jabbed her in the ribs with her good arm. “One of the Gryff twins caught you when you passed out and brought you down.”

“That was nice of him.”

“Wasn’t it?” Jo said with a sly grin.

“What are you so fiendish about?”

“If you don’t figure it out by the end of the year, ask me again. I’ll tell you.”


	64. Imposter

October 17th, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

After a month and a half of watching the new Professor closely, Jo and Leilani had picked up on some oddities in his behavior. They were predisposed to distrust after his first lesson, but Leili tried to look at it objectively, or as objectively as she could, considering. Her arm still hurt and she saw Madame Pomfrey once a week to work on range-of-motion exercises

“He’s drinking out of his flask once every hour. If it were a normal drink it wouldn’t be so exact, it’d be more sporadic, and he wouldn’t be turning his back to us. There’s something in it that he doesn’t want us to see,” Leili said as they sat in the great hall for lunch.

“You know what we gotta do?” Jo asked

“Please tell me you’re not thinking of stealing the flask,” Leili groaned, turning to look at her friend.

“Yup. How else do we find out what’s inside?”

“Alright… how do we do this?” Leilani sighed.

“We wait till he’s asleep and then we steal it right out from under his nose.”

Later that night the girls stood outside the Professor’s quarters and summoned the flask. When it came zooming towards them Leilani quickly began to pour some into a vial she’d brought along. Seeing this Jo whispered, “What’re you doing? Just take the whole flask!”

“If he wakes up and finds that this is missing I don’t want to know what he’d do to get it back! Besides, I’m pretty sure we only need what’s _in_ the flask, not the flask itself,” Leilani whispered back. As soon as she was done pouring, the flask was quickly banished back to Moody’s room and the girls ran like the hounds of hell were on their heels. They got back to their dormitory, breathing hard. “Now what do we do with it?” Leilani asked.

“I don’t suppose _you_ can identify it, can you?”

Leili examined the liquid in the vial, she swirled it around and even gave a short sniff from a safe distance away. All it made her do was sneeze. “I haven’t got a clue, it’s not one I’ve ever made and it smells _dreadful_ , how anybody could stand to actually _drink_ that stuff is beyond me.”

“Then, tomorrow, I’ll take it to Marcus; if there’s anyone who can identify this stuff, it’s him. ...Or Snape, but I don’t want him asking how we got it.” Jo said taking the vial from Leilani. “But for now, we go to bed.”

Leili laughed quietly, “ _Bed_ , oh, I like that idea.”

Jo presented Marcus Flint with the vial the next day—she had some sort of homing beacon on Slytherins. She could always find Flint and Snape and Leili was pretty sure she could always find Malfoy if she tried. 

After close and careful examination in an unused classroom, Marcus asked Jo to answer a question before he told her what it was. “Where did you get this? You obviously didn’t make it yourself otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me what it was. So, where did you get it?”

“A teacher,” Jo said simply.

“An imposter is more like it. This is polyjuice potion; it allows a human to transform into another human for one hour. It’s difficult to make and I can’t imagine it tastes very good, between the leeches and the lacewing flies and the boomslang skin. Plus you need a bit of the person you’re transforming into, otherwise nothing will happen and you’ll have drunk a foul tasting potion for no reason,” Marcus explained as he walked over to the sink and dumped the potion down the drain, rinsing out the vial before handing it back to Jo. “Don’t let anyone catch you with that stuff.”

“We won’t,” Jo told him confidently.

Later that day Jo met up with Leili and told her what Marcus had said. “Polyjuice potion? Sounds dangerous. …I would say that there could be a perfectly innocent explanation but, I doubt it. Should we tell Dumbledore?”

“Probably.”

“We’re not going to, are we?” It was more statement than question.

“He might already know, after all, he knew about Lupin.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“We’ll deal with it then. We should get more information before we say anything anyway.”

“As you wish,” Leili quoted.


	65. Switched

October, 1995

6thyear

\--

Jo was pretty sure this day could get worse. She wasn’t sure _how_ exactly, but still, it could be worse. She’d been assisting Leili with a new potion that morning and while she wasn’t sure what the _intended_ outcome of this potion had been, she was pretty sure after it blew up in their faces that this… wasn’t it.

“Oh no,” Jo said as the cloud dispersed. Leilani started to say something but was interrupted by the door opening.

“What’s happened?” Skye asked.

“Nothing,” Leili said.

“A potion went wrong,” Jo admitted from her seat on Leili’s bed.

“I have shared a room with you two since we were eleven. I can tell when you’re hiding something, spill.” Skye demanded.

Jo heaved a sigh, “I was experimenting.”

“ _You_ were experimenting?” Skye asked.

“Yes, I was experimenting and the potion went all kablooie in our face and we may or may not have kind of…”

“Switched bodies.”

“Swit—you mean _you_ are Leilani?” she asked Jo.

“Guilty.”

After a moment of darting eyes and mental wheels turning, “PFFFT! BHAHAHA! OH MY GOD!” Skye guffawed.

“I’m not sure this is funny…” Jo said.

“Mostly embarrassing,” Leili agreed.

“No, no, this—this is _hilarious_! Good jobs girls, good job,” Skye applauded.

At first, underneath the embarrassment of such a result, Leili was thrilled; she’d always wanted to be taller! She could reach things on the top bookshelves now, look people full in the face, but then she was constantly hitting her head on things. Her elbows stuck out further than she remembered and she was constantly tripping over her clodhopper-sized feet.

Jo on the other hand, bemoaning her shortness: “I’m a midget!” she wailed. 

To which Leili replied simply, “Hey!”

After an hour or so of being Leili sized, Jo had discovered some advantages to her newfound smallness: she could fit almost anywhere. Every nook, cranny and trunk that was empty Jo found and climbed into.

“I fit!” she’d proclaim happily.

A few hours after the accident with no end in sight Jo-in-Leilani’s-body realized, “We have a problem, Leili,”

“I’ll figure out a way to reverse this, don’t worry.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“What?”

“I have a date with Marcus today.”

“Oh no…”

So Jo-who-was-actually-Leilani went out to meet Marcus. He went to take her hand and Leili used Jo’s body to raise her wand and stick it in Marcus’ chest.

“Nope! Nopenopenope. Nooooope,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, suddenly suspicious.

“Iiiiii _may_ or may _not_ be who you think I am.”

His tone was suddenly all dread as he said, “What.” It wasn’t a question. 

“Jo’s body. Leilani speaking. Hi. Jo is in the library trying to figure out how to switch us back. I came out here to cancel or postpone your date. We figured you wouldn’t accept it if it came from Jo who looks like me and that if I could just get it over with fast enough, you might not notice. Obviously, it didn’t work.”

“I’ll help you look.”

Taken aback, Leili blinked Jo’s eyes at him in surprise. “Thanks.”

He grunted at her. He was weirded out by this whole situation: the girl walking beside him looked like Jocelyn, sounded like Jocelyn but most definitely did not _move_ like Jocelyn. The voice was hers but the _way_ she spoke wasn’t, except for the odd phrase here or there.

Two hours later in the library, “Ok, I found a way to switch us back.”

“Thank _Merlin_. Do it,” Jo sighed, rubbing Leili’s eyes. Leili had a pair of reading glasses for cases of eyestrain, but she almost never wore them.

She did it. It worked. They were back in their own bodies, but they weren’t out of the woods yet, it didn’t stick. They switched back and then switched back again so they were once again in each other’s bodies.

“Jo?” Marcus ventured.

“Nope. Still Leilani.”

Marcus grumbled something inaudible.

“Leili, do you remember how you made the potion that did this?”

“I think so. Why?”

“We’re going to re-do it.”

“Find me when you’re back in your own body.” Marcus told Jo.

“Yeah, sure, bub,” they parted ways outside the library, the girls going back to their dorm and Marcus going they didn’t care where.

They pulled out Leili’s spare cauldron and all the ingredients she’d used and went to work. Unfortunately, they had no idea where she’d messed up. They reworked it and it didn’t explode.

“Where did I go right?” Leili moaned. She poured the new potion into a vial, cleaned out the cauldron and shoved it under her bed again.

“OW!” Leili’s pain rang through the room as she tried to sit up while her head was still under the bed.

“You ok?”

“Fiiine. Ow.”

“Sit down before you hurt yourself.”

“Too late,” Leili sat down with a thud.

“What did you hit this time?”

“My head. Your head? Again. We’ve got to find a way to switch us back.”

“Well, the library didn’t help. Reworking the potion that did this didn’t help.”

“That leaves us with ‘phone a friend’.” 

So that’s what they did. They went down to the Hospital Wing—they’d have gone to Professor Sprout, but she wasn’t in her Common Room office. 

“Ah, ladies, how are you?” Madame Pomfrey said.

“We’re fine,” Leilani-who-was-really-Jo answered. “We do have a problem though.”

“Potion went wrong on us. We switched bodies. Can you get us back to, well, us?”

While the matron headed for the medicine cabinet, Leilani-who-only-looked-like-Jo peered over her shoulder at the two heavily bearded, bickering old men. 

She grinned at them, “What happened to you two?”

“It’s his fault,” they declared pointing at each other.

“Mister and Mister Weasley tried to hoodwink the age line around the Goblet of Fire with an ageing potion,” Madame Pomfrey explained. “Like all the others who try it, it backfired. Here, drink this. Drink all of it. It won’t taste very good but it’ll put you right.”

Jo scowled Leili’s face at the vial while Leili pinched Jo’s nose shut and downed the potion.

“Now go sit down, it may take a minute and I don’t want you falling over when it takes effect.” The girls did as they were told and each sat down on a bed opposite the twins.

“Leilani,” Fred said.

“Huh?” Leili replied raising Jo’s eyebrows.

“What did _you_ do?”

“Oh, I was trying to make an Invisibility potion. Something went wrong. Instead of making someone invisible, it made me switch bodies with the nearest person, Jo. So I guess it kind of worked? It didn’t make me invisible but could allow me to be in two places at once—sort of.”

“Emphasis on _sort of_ ,” Jo snickered.

Suddenly the room went into a free spin around the girls. It was a little like one of the rides at a rollercoaster park where the rider was strapped upright into a person-sized cage with support bars just below shoulder height to grab onto when the ride—shaped like a giant wheel—spun and dipped at ridiculous speeds. With a surprisingly physical shove that threatened to knock Jo over and did knock over Leili, it passed and they were themselves again.

“Did it work?” Jo asked in her own voice. She grabbed for her ponytail and pulled it so she could see the color of her hair. “It worked!”

“I’m me again!” Leili crowed. “Yay! I’ve never been so happy to be short in my life!”

The twins were grinning, Fred would have to get the recipe from her later, it would make for an excellent prank—and it would give him the opportunity to talk to Leilani some more.


	66. Ulterior Motives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you should know: I don’t depict Oliver as he is in canon, he diverges pretty significantly. Just thought you should know so it’s not a shock and nobody yells at me for getting him wrong. Just bear that in mind for 6th year chapters. I also thickened up and write out his accent.

October 30th, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

Leili and Jo were waiting in the stands for Hufflepuff’s turn on the Quidditch Pitch; Gryffindor had it now. There would be no games this year due to the Triwizard Tournament, but that didn’t stop anyone from practicing. When Gryffindor’s time was up, Hufflepuff took the field, leaving Leilani alone in the stands as she watched her best friend whack away bludgers. She wasn’t alone for long though, a burly Gryffindor boy with light brown hair and a _delicious_ Scottish accent came to sit beside her. 

“Hello,” he said. 

Leili turned to look at him, “Hi,”

“Oliver Wood,” he told her, extending his hand. 

“Leilani Akina,” she said, taking the offered hand. The awkward tension between them was practically palpable and Leili wished she’d brought a book. “Weren’t you supposed to have graduated last year?” she asked, remembering something Lee had said about him during a match last year.

“I… didnae pass my N.E.W.Ts, ahm repeating my 7th year,” he grumbled, not sounding at all happy about it, not that he should be. It was an embarrassing thing, to have to repeat one’s last year. The awkward silence returned until he said, “So ye like Quidditch?”

“My best friend, Jo, plays. My mum is a big fan, she wanted to go to the World Cup, but it didn’t happen.” Leili’s mom, being a muggle, wasn’t allowed to attend and her dad, being an American by birth, had a preference for Quodpot. “I’m only a half way decent player, so I like to watch. I especially like how seekers have to be on the lookout for an impossible flying gold walnut.” When Oliver looked at her askance she explained, “The snitch—gold, the size of a walnut, flies, nigh impossible to catch...”

Oliver laughed when he got the joke. Leili wasn’t a fan of explaining her jokes; it lost its punch if she had to explain it.

“Is Joe a seeker?”

“Mm-mm, beater.” She was only half tuned in to him, only half listening.

“Oh, are you and he…dating?”

“Me and who?” Leili asked him, totally lost.

“Joe.”

Leilani blinked before she started laughing, “No! Jo and I aren’t dating! She’s my best friend, known each other since we were 9.”

“Why would her parents name her Joe?”

“They didn’t, it’s short for Jocelyn. You know her by Montgomery, number 5?” Leili pointed to where Jo was hovering and understanding dawned on Oliver’s face.

“Oh. Mon’gom’ry, she’s a good beater,” Oliver said. Leili turned back to the game and Oliver saw Fred Weasley, who had been heading towards them, turn around and walk away. He wouldn’t approach her unless she was alone, a tactic he may want to re-think since she was rarely alone. 

Oliver couldn’t have one of his best beaters distracted by a girl, so he’d beaten Fred to her. He had to keep his players focused; they had to practice this year so next year, when the games resumed, they’d be able to win the Quidditch Cup, he might be graduating this year but he still wanted them to win. And maybe he could glean some information from her as to how he could beat the Hufflepuff team. 

“Are you excited for the Triwizard Toornament?”

“You’re going to think I’m weird, but no, not really. I’ve heard horror stories about this tournament, people get hurt, people die. It’s a horrible thing, this tournament. I wish it hadn’t been resurrected.”

“Ye’ll just have to wish me luck, then.”

“You’re going to enter?”

“Already have.”

“I hope you don’t get chosen,” Leili said and then caught the look on Oliver’s face. And in the nick of time, saving her from having to backpedal, Jo flew over, signaling the end of practice. “Well, it was nice talking to you,” Leili told him.

“You too,” he turned to Jo, “Mon’gom’ry.”

“Wood. Ready Leili?”

“Ready,” she said when she was settled on the back of Jo’s broom. “Let’s go.” 

“What was _that_?” Jo asked when they touched down far enough away. 

“I have no idea. He just sat down and started talking to me, it was weird.”

“Looks like you’ve got an admirer!”

“Know anything about him?”

Jo shrugged, “He’s a good Keeper.”


	67. Champion Selection

Halloween, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

This was it! Today was the day! The names of the three champions would be drawn from the Goblet tonight after the Feast.

The whole school was buzzing about it. Even Leili was excited, despite herself. Though that wasn’t the only reason she was excited today. Oliver Wood had asked her out on a _date_! She was still internally squealing about it and every now and again when she thought of it, a grin sprang to her face.

Like it did now. 

Jo noticed and smiled, rolling her eyes. She nudged Leili with her shoulder, “Stop smiling,” she joked.

Leilani grinned harder, but this time it was at Jo instead of her own thoughts.

After the Feast, Dumbledore clapped for the attention of the combined schools. The blue flames turned ruby red, eliciting excited murmurs from the students.

“And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for! The selection of the Triwizard Tournament Champions.” 

All watched with bated breath as Dumbledore dimmed the lights, the room was so silent all anyone could hear was the crackling of the red flames in the large wooden chalice.

With a distinct _Fwoomf_! the fire spat out a paper containing the first name.

“The Durmstrang champion: Viktor Krum!”

The students of Durmstrang erupted into applause as Viktor stood and enthusiastically made his way to the center where he shook Dumbledore’s hand and left the hall. 

The fire _Fwoomf_!-ed again.

“The champion of Beauxbatons: Fleur Delacour!”

Fleur stood and proudly walked to the center to shake Dumbledore’s hand and follow Krum out of the hall while Beauxbatons Academy broke into applause. 

Another _Fwoomf_!, another paper, “Hogwarts Champion: Cedric Diggory!”

Cedric laughed quietly as Hogwarts flew into cheers. Standing, he followed the pattern and shook Dumbledore’s hand before following the path the other two champions had taken out. 

“Excellent! We now have our three champions; but in the end only one will go down in history. Only one will hoist this chalice of champions, this vessel of victory...” with a turn and a slight flourish, Dumbledore pointed to the canvas covered object Mr. Crouch had just placed front and center. 

As the headmaster declared, “The Triwizard cup!”, the canvas flew off, revealing a spectacular trophy of blue glass and silver dragons.

All applauded this magnificent cup and the feat it represented, save for Snape, whose eyes were fixed on the goblet behind Dumbledore. His brow was slightly furrowed and Dumbledore turned to see ruby red flames where there should have been none. 

The goblet spit out one final name, which fluttered down within reach of Dumbledore who caught it and read it in stunned disbelief.

“Harry Potter,” he whispered. 

Then louder, this time a question, “Harry Potter?”

Harry tried to sink back into his seat, tried to become invisible. 

“Harry, best if you join us up here please,” Dumbledore said and suddenly Harry was walking towards him. 

Dumbledore handed Harry the slip of paper with his name on it and gently pushed him towards the other teachers. 

“Well.” Jo said. “ _That_ wasn’t s’posed to happen.”

“Very profound, Jo,” Leili retorted with a roll of her eyes. 

Jo grinned at her with a bat of her eyelashes. It was quickly apparent that Harry would be competing, much to Professor McGonagall’s worry and dismay.

As November the 24th neared, the girls tried to think of ways to help the youngest champion through the unknown first task; finally they settled on Liquid Luck. 

Luckily, by that time, Leili already had a cauldron stewing. Less luckily, they had exactly two weeks until the first task and Leili had been trying and failing to make this potion since their third year. There was no room for error; she _had_ to get this potion right. 

…They were screwed.


	68. Ferret

November 5th, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

“Why so tense, Potter?” Draco asked as he jumped out of the tree he was sitting in. “My father and I have a bet, you see. I don't think you're gonna last 10 minutes in this tournament. He disagrees, he thinks you won't last five,” Draco sneered.

Harry turned, “I don't give a _damn_ what your father thinks, Malfoy. He's vile and cruel. And you're just pathetic.”

“Pathetic?” Malfoy repeated, whipping out his wand and preparing to curse Harry into oblivion.

“Oh no you don't, sonny!” Mad-eye said, turning Malfoy into a ferret before he had a chance to say a word. “I'll teach you to curse someone when their back is turned!” With that he began to make Malfoy bounce, “You stinking,” bounce, “cowardly,” bounce, “scummy...” bounce.

“Professor Moody!” McGonagall called.

“...Back-shooting...” bounce-bounce.

“Professor Moody! …What are you doing?”

“Teaching.” Bounce.

“Is that a...? Is that a student?!”

“Technically it's a ferret.” 

McGonagall transfigured Malfoy back into a boy, who with a threat and fearful shriek, ran away when Mad-eye made it clear he could tell stories of Draco’s father that would curl even Draco’s greasy hair.

“Alastor.”

“It doesn’t end here!” Mad-Eye shouted after Draco.

“Alastor!” McGonagall repeated sternly, “We _never_ use transfiguration as punishment! We take points and speak to their head of house. Surely Dumbledore told you that?"

Moody looked sheepish, “Mighta mentioned it.”

“You would do well to remember it,” she said, scooping up her books before shoo-ing off the gathered students and walking briskly away while Moody dragged a traumatized Malfoy with him to see Snape.

“Don't talk to me,” Ron said quietly.

“Why not?” Hermione said in surprise.

“Because I want to fix that in my memory forever,” Ron said, his eyes closed and an ecstatic expression on his face. “Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret...”

Jo and Leilani were the only two—besides McGonagall—not laughing. Leili wanted to, seeing Malfoy transformed into a ferret was _funny_ , but the frown on Jo’s face had her clamping her lips together to suppress her grin. 

“That wasn’t funny,” Jo declared.

“No. You’re right. It wasn’t, it was—“ she coughed to hide the snicker, “It was terrible.”

“Then stop _laughing_!”

“I’m not laughing!”

Jo gave her a look, arms crossed, eyebrow raised, head tilted. 

Leili cleared her throat to dispel the laughter that lingered there, but she couldn’t suppress the smile. “I’m sorry, I know you don't like Moody, and I know that under most other circumstances I’d be right there with you. I just…!” she tossed up her hands in a shrug that plainly said she was giving up. “Hippogriffs don’t like Draco.”

“Because he’s an arrogant little snot, but that doesn’t mean he deserved _that_!”

“Well, yeah, but Moody turned him into a ferret and hippogriffs _eat_ ferrets. SO it’s not so much that they don’t like him, as it is that they—”

“Want to eat him,” Jo finished. It was her turn to smile, “Ok, that’s a _little_ funny. But the rest of it was wrong!”

“Absolutely. ...I actually feel a little bad now.”

“For finding it funny?”

“Yeah, but also for not doing anything. A _teacher_ transfigured Draco into a _ferret_. It's an abuse of Moody's power and I maybe shoulda done something instead of standing and watching...” the guilt of doing nothing was coming through loud and clear now that the humor had passed.

“Yeah well, don't beat yourself up too much: I didn't exactly leap to the kid's rescue either.”


	69. Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor

November 10th  
Sixth Year  
\--

“”ufflepuff? ‘ow can ‘ufflepuff be allowed to compete? Zey are ze brainless ‘ouze!” A Beuxbatons boy said after the Champion selection. “And zat leettle Greefeendor, ‘e cannot compete! ‘e is too young! ‘ogwarts is cheating! Eef ‘ogwarts eez allowed two champeeons, we should ‘ave two champeeons!”

“Brainless House? What makes Hufflepuff brainless?” Jo demanded.

“I waz told zat ‘ufflepuff is for the… ‘ow do you say? Broken…Damaged. Studentz ‘oo do not fit into ze ozer ‘ouzez.”

Jo snapped, her fist flew out and stopped a half-inch from the boy’s nose.

“Hufflepuffs are not brain damaged! Gryffindors are brave to the point of reckless stupidity, Ravenclaws are brainy and value learning above all else, Slytherins are sly and cunning like the snake they display on their crest; Hufflepuffs value loyalty and hardworkers who aren’t afraid of toil, we’ve produced the fewest Dark Wizards because we are just and true! And if I ever hear you dissing my house again, I will hurt you, don’t you for a second think I won’t.”

The French boy took a step back and then bolted. Jo dropped her fist to her hip and stood there, watching his retreating back.

When she couldn’t see him anymore she turned to Leili and Marcus who’d been walking with her when she’d heard the insult.

“…Did you just quote the Sorting Hat?” Marcus asked.

Leilani grinned as she spilt off from the group, Oliver was leading Quidditch practice and she said she’d watch.

When practice was over, he flew over to her, “How’d we do?”

“Looked great from here! How do you think you did?”

Oliver weighed all the things he thought they could have done better, from Harry seeing the snitch faster to Angelina getting the Quaffle through the hoops more reliably.

Leilani listened to him deliberate for a while until he stopped, “I’m boring you.”

“No, I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but no, you’re not boring me. It’s kinda fun to watch you talk about this. You get aallll puffed up.”

“You couldn’t see where we should have been better?” he asked, surprised. It was so obvious to him. He spent whole summers drawing up new plans.

“I have a hard time seeing that when it’s only one team playing. When you’re playing against somebody, I can see where a chaser’s aim was a little off or a beater should have hit a little harder or where a keeper was just a few seconds not quick enough. I can see it then, because the other team gets the point,” she admitted. “So, despite the flaws, how do you think you did?”

“I don’t think we’d beat Slytherin. Hufflepuff, but not Slytherin.” He was teasing now; she knew it.

“Oh, really?” she teased back. “I don’t know, Hufflepuff is pretty good, you might be surprised when they kick your butt,” she laughed.

He grinned and his eyes sparkled at her, “What are ye doing for Winter Holiday?”

“Well, I usually go home for Christmas. Why?”

“Will you go to the Ball with me?”

Leilani made a show of thinking about it, “Oh gee, I don’t know…” He made a face at her and she laughed, “Yes! Absolutely, yes! It sounds like fun!”

He flew off to change clothes and she left to meet Jo in the library to do homework.

“Jo!” She called. “JoJoJoeyJoJo! Mojo Jojo!” She giggled to herself. Her exuberance earned a glare and a ‘Shhhh!” From Madame Pince.

“What?” Jo grinned, it was nice seeing Leili so happy, though where ‘Mojo Jojo’ came from, she couldn’t guess.  
  
“He asked me to go to the ball with him!”  
  
“Who?” Maybe it was…  
  
“Oliver! Who else?”  
  
Or not. “That’s great!”


	70. First Date

November

First Hogsmeade Weekend

6th year

\--

This was their first date out. He met her outside The Three Broomsticks.

“Hi,” she said. She was nervous. 

“Hi,” he replied.

Her first date ever and with this utter _hunk_ , she sent silent entreaties to every God she could think of that tonight go well. This was impressive for her since she was largely a non-believer. Like many others, however, she could believe when she wanted something and tonight she _definitely_ wanted something.

They took a booth inside and Leili pulled an Exploding Snap deck out of her clutch, “Wanna play?”

“Ah think ah’d like to _keep_ my eyebrows this time,” he laughed. Last time he’d lost the game and had half his eyebrows singed off.

“They grew back!” Leili pointed out, dropping the cards back in her purse. “Besides, if you wanted to keep your eyebrows, then maybe you shouldn’t have taught me to play,” she teased.

A waitress came by with a quill and pad floating beside her, “What’ll you have?”

“Two butterbeers and the shepherd’s pie,” Oliver provided.

“Actually, make that one Butterbeer and a Gilly Water and could I get the chicken fingers, please?”

The quill scritched and scratched and the waitress nodded, moving on to her other tables.

“Do ye no’ wan’ a Butterbeer? They’re famous here.”

“Believe it or not, they’re too sweet for me. I can’t drink more than a few sips of the stuff.”

“Och, Aye, right!” he was sure she was kidding.

She shrugged, perfectly serious.

His eyes widened in disbelief, “Tha’s practic’ly sacrilegious, Leilani.”

She shrugged again, smiling gratefully at the waiter who dropped off the drinks. 

She struggled with the cap on her gilly water for a few minutes before holding it out to Oliver, “Can you open this for me please? I swear they put the caps on these things with a wrench…”

“Are ye goin’ ta take Apparating Lessons this year?” Oliver asked as he twisted the cap off and handed the bottle back.

“I can’t, lessons are in January; I won’t be 17 till April. I’ll take them with Jo next year. I’m looking forward to it. Is it hard?”

“So long as ye keep your concentration and don’t splinch yourself, it’s pretty easy. How are your classes? You’re taking Alchemy this year right?”

“Classes are hard. Alchemy is really hard; I have an essay due next week and it’s giving me fits, I’ve got a group meeting in the library tonight to work on it. Magical Theory is interesting, though, trying to figure out how spells work in order to create new spells. Mostly it’s a lot of Latin. One of the boys in the class was trying to take apart a camouflage spell, and accidentally turned his hair blue.”

“Blue?” Oliver asked with a grin.

“It was one of the more successful classes we’ve had, actually. How’s Quidditch?”

“Fred and George don’ take it seriously, Harry is ne’er available for practice because of the Toornament, and the other players are too focused on exams, they’re neglecting their skills.”

“Well, the exams are important, you know that. I mean you’re going to have to take them too at the end of the year, unless you want to be stuck here forever. And Harry has a right to be nervous, I mean who knows what he’s going to have to deal with in the tournament and he’s going to have OWLs next year. As for the twins, I don’t know them very well, but not taking things seriously seems to be a main aspect of their personalities.”

“Are ye saying that I take it too seriously?” he frowned, feeling offended.

“No!” she said hurriedly, “I’m saying, you love Quidditch, it’s your end all be all, you just have to remember that it’s not that way for everyone else. At least…at least there’s no Cup this year, you don’t have a game riding on everyone when they’re distracted.”

When their dinner was delivered she breathed a sigh of relief that that hadn’t gone off and become an argument.

She hated fighting. She hated being angry; it made her stomach cramp up. She’d rather walk away angry than stay and fight with someone. It gave her a chance to calm down. 

Between mouthfuls he asked, “Where are ye froom?”

She responded with a knee-jerk, “Brighton, England.”

“Your name doesna _sound_ English.”

“ _Oh_ , you mean where’s my family from. No, sorry. I’m half-‘n’-half,” she slipped into a hard to maintain Irish accent she’d stolen from Seamus Finnigan. “Me mum’s English, Da’s American.”

“ _American_ —really? Your name doesna sound American, either.”

The accent wobbled before falling away entirely, returning to her original lilt. “Caveat on that, Dad’s American, yes, but more accurately, he’s Hawaiian—which is why you can’t place my name, because it’s Hawaiian, not English.”

“You don’ look Hawaiian either. Yer too pale.”

“I never said we were _native_ Hawaiian; my great-great grandparents moved from Oklahoma after spending their Honeymoon on Maui.”

“What brough’ yer dad here?”

“Mum. He moved here to be with her.”

“Fer a minute there ye sounded—”

“Irish? Yeah, that happens sometimes. I pick up accents when I hear them often enough and they slip out when I’m not careful. I hear Seamus’ at dinner, he’s such a loud talker, I can hear him from halfway across the room.”

When their dinners were finished, she knocked on the table, saying, “C’mon, play a round of Snap with me. If you think you’re going to lose, just lean away from the cards. At least I’m not suggesting gobstones, where one of us goes away covered in ick!”

He had to admit that was true. 

She pulled out the deck and he shuffled, because if she did it, the cards went all over the floor. They played a round and he won! Emboldened by his success, they went again, and this time, he lost. 

He got up to get another Butterbeer.

She glanced at her watch after he came back. She had to do a double-take when she saw the time, she was late! “Crud! I gotta run. I’ve got a study session in the Library to get to, I’ll see you later, ok?”

He caught her hand as she stood up. “Hey… Stay,” he said. 

This was the Oliver she’d decided to go out with. The one who’d had the house elves bring her flowers the day she’d agreed to go out with him. The one who’d taught her how to play Exploding Snap when he’d seen her playing Solitaire. It was odd, but she felt like this was the first time she’d seen him all night.

He gave her hips a tug so she was sitting abruptly on his lap. Linking his fingers over her hip, he pressed his lips to her bare shoulder; it sent shivers up her neck and down her other arm. 

She rested an elbow on his shoulder and propped her head on her fist. “I really do need to go, Oliver...”

He frowned, “Did I do something wrong?”

“No!” she burst out, shocked that he would even think such a thing. “I told you, I have a cram session in the library. It was a last minute thing. Nothing to do with you, I promise.”

“Will ye go oout with me again?”

“Sure.”

He did something awfully forward then: he kissed her. 

Her face burned with the heat of a blush but something cold twisted in her belly. It happened so fast she didn’t really have time to think about it.

“Ye taste like chicken,” he said.

She snorted, “I gotta go.”

She stood up to go but he caught her hand again. He paid for dinner and then walked her back up to the castle, always keeping her steps aligned with his. She pulled his hand down from its position: grazing the underwire in her bra. She placed it firmly on her hip. She’d let him get away with the kiss, but almost fondling? That was _too_ forward.


	71. First Task

November 24th, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

Leili and Jo sat staring into the cauldron as the liquid inside turned bright gold with small, goldfish shaped drops leaping out. “Oh my god. Oh my god! I did it! I finally did it!” Leili cheered

“Yay! It only took you what, 4 years?”

“Something like that,” Leili laughed

“Now, how to get it in his drink…” the girls sat in silence, Leili stared at the badge Jo had pinned to her top, she watched how the light moved across it as Jo breathed or talked. Then, suddenly, Leili lifted her head from its resting place in her hand and a smile slid across her face.

“Put it in his drink at breakfast!”

“But how do we make sure he sits in that exact spot?” Jo asked.

Leili bit her lip before slowly saying, “We use one of ours and cast a switching spell, it’s simple, subtle… I need another s word.”

Jo considered the plan and nodded appreciatively, “Sneaky.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

“So we’ll fill a goblet with juice and a few drops of Liquid Luck, he won’t need much, just enough to get him through a few hours and then you’ll switch them and he will never know the difference. Right?”

“Right!” Leili said, scooping potion into vials.

At breakfast after Harry sat down and filled his goblet with pumpkin juice Leili whispered a simple switching spell, trading Jo’s lucky goblet for Harry’s normal one. The girls kept an eye on Harry, silently urging him to take a drink from the goblet; once he did they exchanged grins and went back to eating their own breakfast.

“How do you feel Harry?” Hermione asked.

“Terrified.”


	72. Shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Non-consensual Vaginal Fingering  
> This is where the "& UP" part of the rating comes in. They don't have sex but he tries real hard and what he does do is very much assault. If you want to skip that part look for “I care. Now, if you’ll unvanish my underwear, please.” and then skip until "Ye should buy tha’ dress.” That'll get you through it.

December

Hogsmeade Weekend before the ball

6th year

\--

“Hey, d’you want to go shopping with me…?” Leili hedged. Originally she was going to go with Jo but Jo was busy, so she asked Oliver.

“I’d love to,” he said, watching her grin around the thumbnail she’d absentmindedly stuck between her teeth, she wasn’t really biting it, it was just there.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok. Well, come on then,” she spun on her heel and headed off towards Hogsmeade. His legs were so much longer than hers, pretty soon he was beside her and he was taking her ribs again, thumb absentmindedly stroking the side of her chest. The way he pressed her into his side locked her pace with his.

“What are you shopping for?” he asked as they walked.

Left feet together…right feet together…left…right…left…right…

She tore her frown away from their feet to answer, “Mostly potion ingredients, but Jo’s got a book I offered to pick up since she couldn’t make it.”

“You canna get your ingredients from Sneipe?”

“He doesn’t like me very much and I’d rather not ask him for something he’ll probably deny me anyway. So I use my allowance and buy what I need.”

Oliver nodded. 

They chit-chatted about basically nothing as she picked up Jo’s book and as they walked.

“In here, Oliver,” she said, veering towards the shop. The bell above the door jingled as they walked in. She pulled a list from her pocket and started scanning the shelves for the items she needed, “Billywig stings… Wolfsbane… Flobberworm mucus… Mistletoe… what else…?” she murmured to herself as she picked up the bottles and placed them in the drawstring backpack she carried. “Stings, bane, mucus, berries… check, check, got that and that. I can always get the plants I need from Professor Sprout if they’re not in the common room,” she said quietly before heading for the counter. “Ok, guess that’s all I need for now.”

She pulled out each of the four bottles and handed them to the clerk, showing the inside of her bag to make sure they didn’t think she was trying to sneak anything out. She handed over the requisite number of galleons, the clerk put the jars in a bag to keep them together in Leilani’s backpack. “Thanks.”

She and Oliver left the shop and began to head back to the castle, but she stopped in front of a dress shop window nearby. On a mannequin was a short velvet dress in dark blue. “That’s cute,” she commented.

“Ye should try it on,” he nudged.

“I think I will,” she shot a grin over her shoulder at him as she walked inside. The shop assistant brought her the dress when she asked for it and showed her a dressing room with a floor length mirror.

“So, reading anything?”

“Have you ever known me to not be reading something?” she called back cheekily.

“What’s it called?”

“Arrows of the Queen. It’s about this farm-girl who runs away from home to return a Companion—sort of a magical horse—to the Queen and ends up in training to be the Queen’s closest advisor.” A dreamy smile split the corners of her mouth as she thought back on the story. “I’m almost done with it too.”

“When did you start it?”

“This morning.”

“This moorning?!”

Drawing back the curtain, she stepped out of the boxy little room, “I told you, it’s good!” 

“I like it.”

She beamed, a whole world of book-related possibilities opened before her eyes. Oh, the books she would have him read! “I’ll lend it to you when I’m done. I didn’t know you liked my kind of books…” She gave the dress an experimental swish; it stopped just above her knees. “But what do you think of the dress?”

“I wasna talking aboot the book. Although…” He trailed off as he stepped into the dressing room, pulling the curtain behind him closed again. He pressed her into the wall beside the mirror, pinning her hips with his. “Perhaps Ah’ll find a use for it...

His mouth crashed against hers almost violently. The thumb of one hand rubbed the nipple of the breast it cupped, pressing through velvet, satin and lace. His other hand ran down her waist and past her hips. The skin of his palm was hot against her thighs as his mouth moved hers. A funny little noise escaped her as he kissed her.

Shivers went down her spine as he moved from kissing her mouth to grazing her earlobe with his teeth, “I def’nit’ly like the dress,” he moaned.

He placed his hands on her bottom and lifted, picking her up and hooking her knees over his hips. As he lifted, he turned, sitting down on the dressing room tuffet and settling her on his lap, crossing her ankles behind him. She could feel his jeans beneath her legs and suddenly realized she wasn’t wearing underwear.

“Oliver…” she half groaned, half whispered. “What’d you do—Where’s my…?”

He chuckled, twitching his wand in her peripheral vision, “Evanesco.”

“You _vanished_ my—?”

“Uh-huh.” The mere idea that they could be caught at any moment sent electric excitement along his limbs.

“That’s cheating,” she admonished.

He swallowed her murmured scolding as he ran his hands up the velvet dress, the satin lining setting her nerves to shivering. She gasped as the sensation drove every thought out of her head. 

He kissed her harder, pressed her hips into his harder. 

She pushed slightly against his abs to try and obtain a little air. Just a little space. 

He pulled her further into him, pushing on her knees to get her legs to cross tighter around him. 

He pressed her hips down into his harder still, his fingers clenching enough to hurt. 

He moved her hips in small, tight circles.

The hint of a frown appeared between her eyebrows. The noise she made was somwhere between a gasp and a moan. She didn’t know what to do, but he seemed to.

When she tried to slow the pace, he stopped her, keeping their previous speed. 

When her back arched, half involuntary motion and half effort to pull his mouth away from her throat, he pressed her closer and continued trying to give her a hickey. 

With another silent _Evanesco_ , his denim pants were replaced by only skin. As he kissed her, one hand slid her hair tie off, letting long, heavy hair fall over her shoulders. In her peripheral vision she could see the lights in the dressing room picking up the blonde and red strands in her hair and she felt the world begin to fall away when something brushed against her inner thigh.

A blush burned her face and her arms froze, goosebumps erupting across them and her legs. Part of her suddenly _screamed_ that this wasn’t right, they shouldn’t be doing this, there was _something_ wrong, but she couldn’t figure out what was wrong about it. Something cold spread through her stomach and at the back of her neck. 

He whispered in her ear, “Put me oot of ma misery and oopen up these legs fer me. Ah want to feel yeh around ev’ry inch of me.” He punctuated with a tiny, upward thrust.

Catching her own dizzy, half-drunk gaze in the mirror, she stopped. Hands flat on his abs, she pushed back so there was space between them. The room snapped back into solidness around her.

“What’s the prooblum?” he asked, one hand caressing her waist.

“I’m stopping this before we do something we’ll regret.” Things had escalated quickly, too quickly. They’d only been dating for maybe a month, after all.

“We wilna regreit it,” he tried to lean in, but her elbows were locked, the only way he could go was back.

“Fine; something _I’ll_ regret. I’m not doing this with you here.” A new reason occurred to her to stop this, “Besides, I’m still underage. You’re over 17.”

“Who’s goin’ to tell? You?” He tried.

“No, I don’t plan on telling anyone—”

“Then who cares?” He pushed his chest harder against her hands, trying to get closer but her elbows remained resolutely locked.

“ _I_ care. Now, if you’ll unvanish my underwear, please.” Standing, she walked back off his lap and reached for her own clothes. She absolutely did _not_ look at his naked lap. She’d just gotten the dress off when his hands slid around her waist. One slid down-down-down, the other slid up-up-up. He moved so fast, she didn’t have time to stop them. She gasped as one set of fingers suddenly curled _inside her_ while the others slid up the column of her throat. 

He said, “C’mon, Leilani… it’ll be fun! You won’t get in trouble, no-one will _ever know,_ you won’t tell and I won’t tell…” His hips pressed against her, his fingers wiggled inside her, curling and uncurling, his other hand squeezed gently, something she didn't want to name was poking at her from behind and she couldn’t remember how to _breathe_.

The sharpness of his teeth on her neck reminded her. 

She grabbed his hands by the wrists and pulled them off. “ _Stop_. Return my underwear and put yours back on. Now.” She stepped away, tugged her shirt back on and after hearing him grumble about it, she felt her underwear return. She noted he didn’t seem thrilled about doing it.

“Ye should buy tha’ dress.”

“Mm, no. I don’t need it. It’s cute, but—”

“Buy it.” Catching her eyes in the mirror, he stuck one finger in his mouth, dragging it out slowly before doing the same with the other.

Grasping for something, _anything_ to lighten the mood and change the subject she looked away and quipped, “Maybe you should wear it, if you like it so much!”

He frowned, “I don’t wear dreisses.”

“I know. I was kidding,” she sighed internally. He never got her jokes.

“You never wear any other dreisses,” He took the dress as she pulled it off, “I’ll take it up to the counter for you.”

“I—ok,” she gave in. She was buying the dress. Between it and the supplies, her allowance was dwindling fast. “Thank you.” She didn’t wear dresses because they were all at home and owl-post got expensive when you shipped things bigger than a breadbox. But it got him dressed and out of the too tiny room.

She sat down on the tuffet, pressed her hands between her knees and tried not to shake or throw up.


	73. The Yule Ball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I played with Hermione's dress, merging the one from the book with the one in the movie and adding a Dash of Belle to round it out. https://www.deviantart.com/grecian-girl/art/Modified-Hermione-Dress-671394401

December 25th, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

It was Christmas at Hogwarts and normally the girls would be at home reveling in holiday bliss but this year they’d decided to stay at the school.

Neither family had been thrilled; sending your daughter to magic boarding school in Scotland was one thing but not getting to see her for Christmas? That was just cruel! But they grudgingly understood, eventually. 

Hogwarts was hosting a grand party and it offered an opportunity so rarely found in the normal world, the chance to dress up—to play Princess if you would—the chance to dance the night away with new friends from schools that kept their distance.

The evening of, the girls got up and ready for the ball. Jo watched as Leili spritzed something from a crescent shaped bottle. She could smell the cedar and vanilla from where she stood. 

“What’s that?” she asked, but she knew the answer anyway.

“New perfume; Oliver sent it up. ‘Claire de la Lune.’ According to the box, it’s meant to make me feel pretty and feminine and sexy, all the things ‘the man in my life wants’.”

Jo heard the derision, even if Leili didn’t. Leili didn’t like perfume, and yet she wore this one. Because _he_ had sent it. “Does it?”

“Not really.”

“Then why are you wearing it?”

“Because if I don’t, he pouts and I _hate_ seeing him pout.”

Jo could practically taste Leili’s irritation.

The champions opened the ball, Hermione and Krum were quite the picture; she was a vision in a floaty tri color dress, he was in red with black fur trim and a hip length cape over one shoulder—very dashing. 

Ron was quite the picture also, though in a vastly different way. Between his sourpuss expression and his dreadful dress robes, Jo wasn't sure for whom she felt worse: Ron, or his date. Harry, however in bottle green robes almost black, looked wonderful, even his hair looked charming, in a rumpled sort of way.

All the girls looked nice but Hermione was by far the prettiest—discounting Fleur who had an unfair advantage over the others.

Her dress had a ruffled periwinkle blue top skirt, bodice and fluttering sleeves, a dark blue bow around her waist. At mid thigh, the front of the blue skirt stopped to show off a pinky lilac layer that flowed to mid shin in front, the final layer was a bright yellow, which just barely peeked out from beneath the blue and pink skirts in the back. She wore lilac flowers in her ears, and her hair was pinned half up with matching yellow sparkles. 

After the floor was opened to the general population Marcus offered Jo his hand and when she took it, he swept her onto the dance floor where she brought her hands up around his neck and he wrapped his arms around her waist. 

It was the kind of slow song you swayed instead of waltzing and it was the first one of the night. Jo could feel her face growing warmer by the second and she nearly jumped when he brought his mouth down to her ear.

“So, I never got the chance to thank you,” Marcus whispered.

“For what?” she snorted.

“For breaking my nose.”

That made her laugh, it had been two years since she’d done it and she had _almost_ forgotten about it.

“Hey, you deserved it. Nobody makes cow eyes at me and gets away with it.”

“Cow eyes?” he echoed.

“Yes, cow eyes.”

“You broke my nose because I made a face at you?” Marcus asked, he’d never known her motives but he remembered that mocking eyebrow. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“Leilani once whacked a boy over the head with a book because he pissed her off.” Truth be told, Leilani had done that more than once.

“Yes, well, I fully expect that from her; she’s the scary one.”

That surprised Jo, usually people thought Leili the cute, innocent one and Jo the scary one.

When the song was over Jo sat down next to Leili who leaned over and whispered, “You are blushing redder than your dress.”

This was a feat, considering Jo’s dress was bright red under a black lace bodice. A black velvet sash and 4 inch black stiletto heels completed the outfit. Jo shot Leili a dirty look. Leili grinned, just a touch mockingly. 

“Shut up,” Jo said with an embarrassed grin. Jo’s embarrassed grin turned gleeful when Wood came over and asked her for a dance. 

“Oh no, no, no, I don’t dance.” Leili protested. 

Oliver refused to give up. 

“You do too dance! I saw Professor Sprout teaching you to waltz,” Jo protested. 

“Besides, you _are_ dating him,” she pointed out. 

Leili and Wood had been going out for about two months now, and something about him made Jo uneasy. She’d told Leili and Leili had promised to be careful. But her unease did not mean she couldn’t seize the opportunity to tease Leili mercilessly.

“ _This_ _isn’t_ _waltzing_!” Leilani cried. 

Oliver had now taken her hand and she leaned back, farther and farther until her chair toppled over. As he and Jo helped to right Leili, the fast, jumpy dance ended and a waltz was struck up. 

“Now, ye have noo excuse,” Wood grinned, pulling her to the floor. “Who would ha’ though’ tha’ one of the Hufflepuff champions was afreid?” 

He used the term ‘champion’ loosely. Leilani had not entered the tournament and therefore was not a Triwizard champion. However, many students at the school, particularly the Hufflepuffs, heralded Jo and Leilani as ‘Champions of Hufflepuffs Everywhere’, more commonly referred to as simply the ‘Hufflepuff Champions’.

“I have every cotton pickin’ right to be afraid of things! I’m not a Gryffindor! _But_ I am _not_ afraid of the waltz.” Leili didn’t see him smile slyly as she straightened and fell into waltz frame. When he didn’t move she asked, “Are you going to lead or just let me stand here?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he gathered himself into frame under her and proceeded to waltz her around the floor. Jo watched the two amusedly as Marcus seated himself in Leili’s chair,

“She’ll kill you if she finds you stole her seat,” Jo told him. Marcus considered this, Leili was after all, quietly scary. She’d never said anything but he had every confidence that if he ever wronged Jo, Leilani would kill him and bury his body in the woods. Thus he pulled up another chair on the other side of Jo. 

“…You seriously broke my nose because I made a kissy face at you?” Marcus said as he sat down, and then contemplated what she’d do to him if he kissed her. 

“And don’t you forget it, bub!” Jo said, eyeing him suspiciously. 

When Marcus stood to get drinks for himself and Jo, Oliver returned Leili to her chair in a flurry of sparkling skirts and Marcus turned to look at him.

“Flint.”

“Wood.”

The girls exchanged glances and then mimicked mockingly, “Montgomery.”  
  
“Akina.” Jo said, before dropping the pretense and draping herself over Leili’s shoulders, doing her best impression of a sweater. 

Leili laughed. 

Marcus sighed, a resigned look on his face when he saw his date draped over her friend. This was undoubtedly going to turn into a double date. Privately, he liked Leilani but he also enjoyed having Jo to himself.

Wood frowned, “Can I talk to ye a minute? Preivately?” he asked Leilani.

“Can it wait?” Leili asked, placing her hand on Jo’s arm. 

“It really can’t.”

She huffed a resigned breath, tapping Jo’s arm. “Lemme up?”

Jo frowned and hugged Leili tighter; she didn’t like it when people upset her friend. Unhappily, she obliged.

Oliver took Leilani’s hand and led her a little ways away.

“What’s up?”

“Do you have to sit next to her?”

“ _Have_ to? No…? I mean it’s not like it’s _mandatory_ or anything, but I _like_ sitting next to her. She’s my friend.”

He hissed back, “But this is supposed to be a _date_ and she’s draping herself all over you!”

“It’s not _exactly_ a date, a _date_ would be just the two of us and not the entirety of three schools at a winter dance. You invited me to the ball and I said yes, but Marcus invited Jo, as well he should have, and Jo has every right to sit next to me as she pleases.”

“That doesn’t mean she has to fawn over you,” he grumbled.

“She was just saying hello.”

“You were gone for _two minutes_ …”

“What’s the matter with you? Is this because of what we didn’t do at that dress shop a few weeks ago?” Leili asked, frowning. The juggling act of keeping her boyfriend happy while still being able to see and hang out with her best friend was demoralizing and frustrating. 

Jo didn’t need her spidey senses to be on fire and or be hyper focused on Leilani to know something was wrong. Walking over, she dropped a comforting hand on her best friend’s shoulder.

“Everything ok?” her tone was a no argument brooking, don’t-mess-with-us kind of serious. The gaze she leveled at Wood was flat and unforgiving. Standing just behind her shoulder was Marcus

Wood straightened, pulling himself to his fullest height. “Fine.”

“Leili?”

“He disagrees with the seating arrangement.”

“Does he, now?”

Marcus stepped forward from his position behind Jo. “Lay off, Wood. They’ve always been like that. No amount of complaining is going to change it. Trust me, I’ve tried; it gets you nowhere,” he said. 

In the early days of his relationship with Jo, Marcus had indeed tried to separate the two girls, just so he could have Jo to himself sometimes. It hadn’t worked, the two were joined at the hip, so he’d accepted that and taken Jo’s other hip. In the end, Leilani had found other places to be when asked.

“Maybe _you_ couldna separate them, Flint,” Oliver retorted with a snide sneer.

And just like that, the grin was gone. “You trying to insinuate something, Wood?” Marcus growled. Oliver walked up to Marcus, trying to puff himself up.

“If I am, _Slytherin_?” he asked, a nasty grin sprawling across his face.

Marcus’s lip curled into a snarl, “Depends, you want me to break your nose or your jaw first, _Gryffindor_?” The threat in his voice was great enough to make the crowd that was gathering take a step back.

“What? You think I’m afreid of a man who can’t even hang on to his geirlfriend?” Oliver said, his head tilted and eyebrow cocked, an empty smile on his lips.

Marcus finally smiled, and it was _not_ a nice smile, “Jaw it is,” and slugged Oliver right in his smug mouth. 


	74. After the Yule Ball

December 25th, 1994

Sixth Year

\--

Jo yanked Marcus away as Leili Summoned Oliver, both girls letting both boys stumble back and fall, back first, onto the hardwood floor.

Jo saw Marcus try to stand back up—single minded in his attempt to rearrange the Gryffindor’s internal organs, no cocky Gryff insulted _his_ girlfriend and got away with it!—and shoved him onto his stomach, planting herself on his back and crossing her arms. 

Wood climbed up to his feet and stalked over to the pinned Marcus, hands on his hips cockily. 

Before Wood could do anything, Leilani pointed her wand at him and growled, “Sit. Down!”

He was sent crashing to the floor where he opened his mouth to voice the thought forming in his mind. 

“And Shut! Up!” she snapped, a very visible and very real zipper sealed his lips. _That_ hadn’t been intentional.

Marcus opened his mouth to say something but Jo stopped him with a quick, “And that goes for you too!” 

His jaw closed with a snap and his dropped his head into his hand, the fingers of his other hand drumming against the floor in irritation. “Sit. Stay,” Jo heard him mutter to himself.

“Good Boyfriend,” she muttered back. _That_ made him perk up a bit!

McGonagall swooped over in her emerald green dress—if the girls weren’t a bit distracted they probably would have been admiring the outer trumpet sleeves, the black ruffle-wristed under-sleeves and the way the skirt swished out when she moved. “What is going on?”

“Fighting, Professor.”

“Over what?” she glared down her nose at the boys.

“…Us, professor,” Leili admitted. 

“Sort of,” Jo amended.

“Now really, Wood, I expected better of you!” Professor McGonagall chastised. “Starting a fight on tonight of all nights. 50 points from Gryffindor and Slytherin, for your reckless behaviors; in addition you will both receive detention.”

Marcus was sent back to his dormitory while Oliver was sent down to the hospital wing so Madam Pomfrey could remove the zipper while Jo and Leili hung around for a bit. 

When it became obvious that they were probably going to be ignored for the rest of the night, they decided to head back to their own dormitory. 

“Well, that was a bit of a disaster, wasn’t it?” Leili sighed, gathering the skirt of her dress, a dark blue ball gown with a sparkling black overlay and a sweetheart neckline, to her hip as she and Jo started down the stairs that led to both the kitchen and their common room. 

“A bit, yeah.” 

A mischievous grin crossed Leilani’s face as she asked, “So, what exactly did Marcus say to you to get you to blush?”

“Nothing really. He thanked me for breaking his nose, so there was that.”

“He thanked you for breaking his nose?” Leili repeated slowly.

“Yup.”

“Aren’t they usually upset over something like that?”

“Yup.”

“Well, that’s distinctly… Odd.”

“Yup,” Leili looked over at Jo.

“Are all your answers going to monosyllabic ‘yup’s?”

Silence as Jo thought about it, then, “Yup,” they said together.

“Jinx!” Jo cried happily.

“Ha!” Leili exclaimed with a wide grin, “Gotcha!” 

Jo’s grin disappeared and she crossed her arms, pouting, “Darn.”


	75. Slimy Things are Slimy Things

Mid-January, 1995  
Sixth Year  
-

It came to be routine that while Jo was busy in detention with Snape for blowing up yet another cauldron, Marcus would be forced to spend the time with Leilani. He generally liked Leilani, so normally this was an acceptable arrangement, but he did _not_ like her boyfriend who _just so happened_ to also be spending time with Leilani today.

"What are you glaring at me for?" Leili asked.

Marcus said nothing.

"It's because Jo's not here, isn't it?" Again he said nothing. Leili rolled her eyes and returned to her book while Marcus continued to glower ominously at her.

"Would you stop _glaring_ at me?! It is _not_ my fault Jo's cauldron went kablooie! I told her lizard eyes and newt eyes were not the same thing! But she says 'slimy things are slimy things'! It's a wonder she can tell between you and a basilisk!" She huffed.

Marcus' eyes narrowed and he stood, storming off down the hall.

"Oooh, nice." Oliver commented under his breath. A small, pleased smile snuck across Leili's face.

"Hush you," she returned to her book but the smile remained.

It just so happened that on this day after Jo's detention she and Marcus had a date.

It was not a good date.

"Leili, what did you say to Marcus?" Jo asked when she came back to the dorm.

"What did Marcus say I said?" she asked carefully.

"He didn't _say_ anything, just glared for the whole hour," Jo told her.

Leili grimaced, "Um… 'Slimy things are slimy things'?"

"Marcus _isn't_ slimy," Jo said un-amused.

"I'm sorry! He kept glaring at me! And I… let my temper get the better of me."

"That Wood is a bad influence on you," Jo muttered as she walked away. "And if you ever hurt Marcus' feelings again…"

Leili looked at her expectantly.

"I'll use your cauldron to attempt to make a boil cure."

Leili shuddered, "Got it! Message received!"

Jo walked out and Leili double-checked the protection spells on her supplies. She loved Jo, but letting her use her potions supplies would just be torture on the supplies.

Having come to the conclusion that she really shouldn't have called him a basilisk, Leili sought out Marcus and apologized for what she'd said. She hung out in the corridor outside Slytherin house for an hour, informing all Slytherins who went in that she was looking for Flint.

Finally, he came out. He crossed his arms and raised one jet-black eyebrow, waiting.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I said about you, I really didn't meant it. You don't remind me of a basilisk, you're nothing like basilisks. It was rude. I lost my temper. Normally I'm really good about not saying that sort of thing… I don't know why I even thought it, to be honest. Don't take it out on Jo, it's not her fault," she was babbling but his face hadn't changed since she'd started this, she didn't know where she stood.

Did he want more? Did he want her to go away? Did he want her to get down on her knees and beg his forgiveness?

She blinked hard at that last thought; it's something Oliver would have wanted...

“Maybe Oliver _is_ a bad influence...” she whispered to herself.

Marcus grunted, "Remember you said that." Then he left, leaving her feeling honestly no better than when she'd arrived an hour ago and a lot more confused. Had he accepted her apology? Did she _deserve_ to have him accept her apology? 

"I really _am_ sorry!" she shouted through the closed door, before shuffling off. She would do better. Watch her mouth and her thoughts more closely from now on.


	76. Knut a Date

February 12th, 1994

Sixth year

\--

“Pick a number between 1 and 20,” Jo said, tossing a little bronze knut in her hand.

“13,” Flint chose. 

“Ok, start walking,” Jo said. They were in Hogsmeade. On a date. He’d asked her what she wanted to do, she didn’t know; the whole dating thing was new territory for her. 

Flint looked at her askance but she put one foot in front of the other and started off down the lane. Being used to hanging around Leili she was not expecting him to catch up as quickly as he did, but he was 6’2”, a full foot taller than Leili and 6 and a half inches taller than Jo so he caught up before she’d gone too far. He snaked an arm around her waist. She covered his hand with hers and for a moment he was quite disappointed: he was taking liberties and had been expecting for her to retaliate _somehow_. 

Almost as though she sensed his disappointment, Jo’s fingers sought out one of his and peeled it off, pulling it back, not hard enough to break, just enough to be realllly uncomfortable. “Don’t even think about it, bub.”

“Too late,” he grunted, removing his arm. 

They came to a corner and she asked, “Heads or tails?”

“Tails.”

“Right or left?”

“Left.”

“Heads we turn right, tails we turn left,” she flipped the coin, caught it and opened her hand: heads.

“Where are we going?”

“Won’t know till we get there. 12 more flips to go.”

“This is not a big village."

“Then you should have chosen a smaller number,” she smiled sharply, all pointy and slightly crooked teeth.

Several ‘u’-turns and knut flips later…

“Why are we here?” Flint asked as she marched into Honeydukes.

“I’m getting my sister a chocolate wand. She’s turning eleven in May, and if she can’t have a real wand, I’m sending her a chocolate one.”

“ _Is_ she a muggle?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

Jo narrowed her eyes at him, almost unwilling to believe that her sister’s magical or non-magical status didn’t matter to him but when he asked, “Does she like Bertie Botts? Or Pepper Imps?” she decided that he was telling the truth; he really didn’t care.

“She’s not allowed to have Pepper Imps, she accidentally set the curtains on fire once at our dad’s.” She watched as he took a box of Bertie Bott’s up to the counter and ordered a No-Melt Ice cream to go. “…What are you doing?”

“If she can’t have a wand and she can’t have Pepper Imps, then she _will_ have Every Flavour Beans and No-Melt Ice Cream.” 

“I can pay for my own sister’s sweets. But…thank you.” He handed her the bag.

“Oh honey! _Keep him_!” the woman behind the counter enthused as they left the shop. 

“Do you have siblings, Captain?”

“No. Troll Blood doesn’t lead to easy conception.” 

Jo laughed, she had heard the insult before. “I’ve seen a Troll before; you don’t have Troll blood. Much too attractive.”

He grinned broadly, “Me or the troll?”

She just smiled at him.


	77. Tease

Mid-January, 1995

6th year

\----

Leili had a new book. It was too noisy inside so she’d taken her book on a leisurely walk around the grounds. She wanted a place to sit, but that meant she actually had to _look_ for a place. She was too busy reading.

An arm slid around her waist. She pulled out of the embrace not realizing who it was until she looked up at her sudden companion. “Oh, hello Oliver.”

“Hiya Wench,” he kissed her cheek.

She turned her attention back to the page in her fingers, “Don’t call me that.”

“Dinnae fash yerself.”

Her attention was already back in the book, she didn’t even hear him.

They walked peaceably together for a few minutes, Oliver chatting about something and Leili reading. She wasn’t intentionally being rude, she honestly had no idea he was talking.

That is, until his fingers snatched the book out of hers.

“Hey!” she cried.

“Yer ignoring me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, y’are.”

“No I am not—I’m not doing this. If you wanted my attention, all you had to do was ask for it.”

“I’ve _been_ asking for it. _Yeh’ve_ been ignoring me.”

She frowned, “I’m not _ignoring_ you, I just didn’t hear you. Honestly, you should know better than to bother me while I’m reading. I could tune out a small explosion without really trying. If you’ll give me back my book, you can start over and I’ll pay attention this time. I’ll make all the right noises and everything.”

“Ye want it? Come get it.” He closed the book with a snap, and held it out to her.

She reached for the book but he yanked it away.

She grabbed, he yanked.

Higher.

And higher.

And higher. 

“Give me back my book, Oliver!” Leili said as she jumped, reaching for the book he held now above his head. She felt like she was back in third grade, kids had done this to her at recess, she’d hated it then, she hated it now. At least Oliver was unlikely to drown her book in the nearest boy’s toilet—they’d always thought that running into the _boy’s_ bathroom would stop her, it didn’t.

He laughed, “Yer so cute when ye struggle!”

“Oooh!” she growled. “ _Accio_!”

The book struggled in his hand before being yanked out of it by an invisible thread before being yanked back.

Oliver’s wand was in his free hand; he’d used a non-verbal _Accio_ to reclaim control of her book. Now he sent it floating high above her head before letting it dive at her, swooping back at the last second to avoid hitting her. 

Again.

And again.

And again.

She was feeling very attacked right now, “If you don’t give me that back _right now_ , I will have to hurt you!”

“Ye look yer beist when yer at mah mercy, hen.”

Leili threw up her hands and stomped away. 

“What? Givin’ up so easy, Wench?”

That was _it_! The last straw! She turned and brandished her wand, “ _Relashio!_ ” the spell hit his arm with enough force to throw it back and knock the book out of his grip. “ _Accio book_!” she called again and this time her book flew to her hand. She stomped up to him, wand brandished, “If you ever, _EVER_ do that to me again—” she left the threat half finished. She turned again and kept walking, leaving him rubbing his wrist. 


	78. Second task

February 24th, 1995

Sixth Year

-

“You’re sure you want to do this?” Harry hadn't shown up for breakfast so the girls couldn't ply him with Liquid Luck and as such had to fall on plan b. 

“Yes, I’m sure I want to do this. Even if I didn’t, we don’t have much choice if we want to see him through this task alive.”

“Alright. I’ll meet you back here when the task is over. Please be careful, don’t get eaten by the giant squid or anything.” Leili half-joked as she took Jo’s wand and prepared to watch her best friend disappear into the depths of the black lake. 

To an outside eye it would appear that Leilani was talking to a grindylow and, strictly speaking, it was true; however the grindylow was in fact none other than Jocelyn Montgomery. True to the rules, most of the students had not known what to expect for the second task, technically they still didn’t, but they knew that it had to do with the lake. Jo had been practicing human Transfiguration for weeks, just in case.

The four champions were lined up on the pier, they jumped in and Leilani watched from the stands anxiously. Jo watched and followed Harry after he had jumped off the pier ready to rescue should he need it. They didn’t interfere with the task itself; it wasn’t their place. 

As Jo moved quickly through the water, she was spotted by a lavender-haired selkie child who decided Jo would make absolutely the _cutest_ pet grindylow on the block. Most of the hour wasted trying to escape the child that held her captive, who _pleaded_ with her stony faced parents to let her keep the little water-devil. Jo finally made it out—the young selkie had let her go reluctantly on orders of her parents—and set off to find Harry. When she found him, he was being swarmed by actual grindylows and having trouble breathing due to his gills having merged with his neck once again. 

“Oh, no you don’t!” Jo grumbled before swimming headlong at the grindylows forcing a collision that would leave her with a very persistent headache. But it did the trick, when she bowled over one or two the rest let go of Harry to converge on this foreign attacker. Harry quickly made his way to the surface while Jo played the “Who me? I’m just another grindylow, same as you. Nothin’ special card” to avoid getting attacked. 

It didn’t work.

The crowd cheered wildly when Harry, Ron and Gabrielle made it to the surface and Jo watched as the group of grindylows retreated to the waving lake-weed. Slowly she made her way back to the surface, dodging encounters with grindylows and merchildren.

After the scores had been totaled and announced Leilani slipped away to the edge of the lake and awaited Jo’s timely arrival. Only the timely arrival never came. After a good 20 minutes had passed Leilani began to strip down to her bathing suit, donned that morning in case of emergency. She stepped out of her skirt and recited the bubble-head charm before diving into the water. She swam for what felt like ages when she spotted a throng of grindylows. One particular grindylow with a length of lake-weed tied into a bow around its head came barreling towards her. She stopped in front of Leilani and held out a clawed little hand as if waiting for something.

“Jo?” Leilani asked. 

Jo nodded frantically and made “gimmee gimmee gimmee” motions with her clawed hands. Leili handed over a transfiguration reversal potion she’d spent a solid month working on. The grindylow took it and knocked it back with a disgruntled mutter and began to transfigure back into Jo. “Jo!” Leili cried, relieved. “Where have you been? It’s been half an hour since the scores were posted!”

There was no time for explanations as the swarm of grindylows came charging at their quarry once more. Shocked into stillness, Leilani watched as they surrounded Jo, sharp teeth snapping and dark eyes flashing. Eventually, Leili remembered herself and began to yank back on their long, spindly fingers, Jo’s hand shot up through the new opening and began to flail around searching for Leili’s. Leilani wrapped her fingers around Jo’s wrist and heaved. Jo came shooting out of the writhing mass of tiny bodies and swam like her life depended on it—because it did, she could no longer breathe under water—pulling Leilani along behind her.

Their heads broke the surface as Jo ran out of her stored air. Leili’s bubblehead charm burst on contact with the surface air. Jo coughed and gasped and spluttered as she allowed Leili to tow her to shore.

Feet once again on solid ground, Jo pulled the bow from her hair and with a jab of her finger and a dark look in her eyes said, “We are **_never_** to speak of this _ever_ again,” she threw the bow away from her in utter disgust.

“What happened? What took you so long?” Leili persisted, handing Jo a towel and some dry clothes as she wrung out her own hair.

“Nothing, forget it.”

“No, I won’t forget it ‘till you tell me.”

“Well, I’m never gonna tell you.”

“Well then, I guess I’ll never forget it,” the banter ended with Leili looking stubbornly back at Jo who glared at her through dripping strands of hair.

“Ugh!” Jo said, throwing her hands in the air and stomping away. Leilani looked between her friend’s back and the bow on the ground. As she went to catch up, she scooped up the bow, hardly missing a beat. 

“You got him back, he tied for first place with Cedric despite coming up last.”

“My head is _killing_ me…” Jo whimpered, pressing a hand to her temple.

“What’d you do? Head-butt something?”

“Yeah, actually. That’s exactly what I did.”


	79. Oliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: UNWANTED ADULT-TYPE TOUCHING
> 
> Not super graphic, pg-13 at worst.

6th year

Late February 1994

Hogsmeade

\--

Oliver and Leilani were out in the village today. She’d pulled him into the bookshop where she intended to spend at least the next hour reading. There was a little reading area with a wooden stage and some squishy couches; she took a spot on the stage after nicking a pillow from the couch so she could lean against the wall and not have her back complain.

“I don’t want you seeing Mon’gom’ry again,” he said when she was a few pages into her book.

“We’re just friends, Oliver. You have no reason to be jealous,” Leili replied with a distracted air.

“I’m no’ jealous.”

“Yeah-huh, sure you’re not,” she said, mentally rolling her eyes.

“I dinna care if you’re just friends, I don’ want ye seeing her again.”

She looked up, not taking him at all seriously, “You do realize that would be impossible, right? We share a bedroom and we share classes, we’re both 6th year Hufflepuffs, there’s no way we could just _stop_ seeing each other.” 

He tugged the book out of her hand, “I’ve been fair tae you, haven’ I?”

“Sure…” _What a weird question_ , she thought.

“Then why won’ ye be fair to me?” He grinned, wrapping an arm around her lower back and pulling her into him. The velvet skirt made sliding her across the wood easy. He positioned their bodies so her knees straddled his hips and his arm pressed into her back, locking her in position on his lap, “Do I have tae lock you up, darlin’?” he grinned down at her.

Leili snickered, reaching up to stretch out her back; giving him a short peck on the lips while she was there, “Don’t be silly. Now, give me back the book.”

“Yer lips make me wonder what the rest of ye tastes like…” he whispered in her ear, holding the book just beyond her reach.

She fought against the tremble in her knees as she pushed back on his chest, “Woah, now! We’ve had this discussion before! I’m underage, remember?” That was her reason and she was holding fast to it! “We can revisit… _that_ in April, when I’m 17. I’d like my book back, please. Now.”

Tossing the book away, he murmured, “There’s naught wrong with us wanting each other.” He kissed her hard and long before growling against her lips, “Having each other…”

She laughed sardonically, “There’s plenty wrong with it.” She leaned for the book but he pulled her back so she was still on his lap. “Give me my book back, or I’m walking out of here.”

“Nae, Lassie, ye won’t.” He pressed his lips to her jaw, trailing kisses down her neck, “Do you know how bad I want ye?” he murmured, tightening his arms around her and shifting so she was on her back.

“No. C’mon, gimme back my book!” She just wanted to read!

He pulled her further into him and shifted so the front of his jeans pressed between her legs. “This bad.” His hands ground her hips against his as he bit down just above her collarbone for emphasis. She gasped as he rubbed against her.

For a moment, she hesitated.

For a moment, she wondered.

_Maybe I should just…go along with it,_ she thought. _Maybe it would get him off my back a little bit._ His hands dove beneath her skirt and into her panties to squeeze her butt. The front of his jeans was hot between her legs and he kissed her soundly, his tongue probing the inside of her mouth as the tips of his fingers roved, grazing places they had no business grazing and for a moment—just a moment—even though she tried not to be, even though she knew these were the wrong reasons, she was tempted. 

The moment of temptation was shattered as Jo’s voice popped unbidden into her head saying, _“Are you sure?”_

There was nothing to kill a mood quite like your best friend intruding on it—even if said friend was just a voice in her head at the moment and even if the intrusion was an unexpected blessing.

She hit the proverbial brakes. 

She tore her mouth away from his and cried, “WOAH! No. No! I said I’m not doing this! I told you: If you can’t restrain yourself for another _month and a half_ I’m going to drop you in the lake! And you know I can do it, because I’m crafty!” She’d let him try his wiles against the giant squid.

She shoved his shoulder to try and put some space between their bodies but his arms were still locked around her rear so when he went over, she went with him. 

She yelped as they tumbled, throwing out an arm, reaching, _straining_ for her book but he rolled in the other direction so she was again trapped beneath him. 

He kissed her urgently and un-gently as he thrust again. He wanted her, right here, right now on this wooden stage surrounded by children’s books where anyone could walk in at any time. 

She started shaking her head, “Mm-mm!” she murmured. She was light headed and the room was too empty, somehow too secluded and too open at the same time. She managed to wrench her mouth free of his, “No. Oliver. _STOP_.” 

With a lurching heave, she managed to force them to roll again. She couldn’t get up unless she was on top, but her plan backfired; they rolled down the steps leading off the stage and she hit her head twice.

Head throbbing now, she pulled her legs up and stood, backing away.

His eyes glinted as he followed her up, “Ye shouldna tease me like that, lassie…”

“Ow!” she yelped as he gave her a sharp little shove back into the brick wall she hadn’t realized was scant inches behind her. The back of her head connected with the rough surface and the air whooshed out of her lungs.

“Ye belong ta _me_ now, ye ken? Ye’re _mine_.” He wanted dating her to be like flying a Firebolt in a winter storm. Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, knowing he could lose control at any second and not caring because of the thrill, the _rush_ , the _adrenaline_.

“Oliver, I’m sorry. Right now, my head really hurts, so could we do _this_ another day? Or never? Never would be good too.” She was running out of patience and her head really did hurt. She just wanted to go find an ice pack and her book.

“I’ll kiss away the pain, lass.”

“I don’t want you to. Kissing you won’t make my headache go away.”

“Wanna bet?” he kissed her jaw as she turned her face away.

“Oliver, _please_ , not now,” she pleaded. “What _is_ it with you and sex in public places?” she wondered in annoyance.

He pinned her face between his hands and poured all his energy into the kiss. He felt her hands come up and fist in his robes on either side of his chest, pulling him closer and while he triumphed, she _shoved._ She sent him staggering a few steps back.

“Wha—!” He blinked as she glared at him. “Wha’ was tha’ for?!”

“Whaddya _mean ‘what was that for’_?” she shouted back, her face going hot with anger. “You don’t just go around _kissing_ me when I ask you not to! Don’t _do_ that!”

This wasn’t going the way he’d planned. “But yer so cute righ’ noo!”

“I am NOT _cute_!”

He thought she was, with her face screwed into a snarl and her fists balled by her sides. He said as much.

“No! Do not patronize me, Oliver! I’m not cute, I’m in pain, I _don’t_ want you kissing me and I _definitely_ don’t want to have sex with you!”

He reached for her hips, “Ye liked it in the dress shop,” he reminded her, voice going deep and husky and obviously meant to weaken her knees. He trailed the tip of his tongue up the side of her neck, before circling the little hollow behind her jaw. The exact spot she dabbed on that perfume he’d bought her.

If possible, her face got even hotter, this time with acute embarrassment. She shivered in more than a touch of disgust. She glanced down at the bulge in her skirt that was his hand pressing through her panties and at the one curving around her hips. With a purse of her lips, smacked it sharply and repeatedly until he let go, and she wrapped her fingers around his other wrist, digging her nails in until he withdrew it.

She stepped back until his hand was on the _outside_ of her skirt. “I’m leaving. Don’t find me, I’ll find you when I am done hating your guts.”

He reached for her again: _this is what he wanted_. He caught glimpses of it when she was angry or really worked up over something—usually a book. Seeing her like that made him want to do things like pin her up against the wall and hike her dress up so he could feel the warmth of her waist on his bare hands. It made him want to kiss her senseless.

“Say it again.” He took her by the waist, pulling her back into the wall.

“Say what?” she gasped, trying to blink away the spots in her vision, she’d hit her head _again_.

“Say ye’re sorry and I’ll let you go,” he teased.

“Oliver, please,” she didn’t like this. The rough bricks were jabbing into her back, her hips, her pounding head.

“Say it,” he growled.

She didn’t like it at all.

She tried to push away from the wall, but his hands on her hips kept her pinned, like a butterfly under glass.

“Oliver, please, you’re scaring me.” The last time, when she’d bought this dress, she hadn’t been afraid of him, she’d been scared, but not _of him_. 

She was scared of him now.

“Say it and I’ll let you go,” he repeated.

“I’m sorry,” she said dutifully, though she didn’t know what exactly she was apologizing for. Turning him on? Saying no? Refusing to stop having friends?

He waited.

She swallowed. 

More.

He wanted more.

“I’m sorry, Oliver.” She put a tiny smile on her lips, submissive and apologetic. Docile. She hooked her fingers in the waistband of his pants, pulling him infinitesimally closer. She tipped her head back and looked up at him with big blue-grey eyes. “Forgive me?”

He grinned suddenly, his eyes crinkling, “Always, lass.” He kissed the top of her head and stepped aside, handing her the abandoned book.

Ignoring the shame burning in her eyes, she tried not to stomp or hurry as she walked away, her hand pressing hard on the throbbing knot at the back of her head. “Ow…”

“Are you ok, miss?” the clerk asked as Leili handed her the book.

“Fine. I’m fine; I just leaned back too suddenly,” she lied. “You might consider padding the brick wall behind the stage.”

“I’ll pass along the message. Is this all for you?”

Leili nodded, th emotion sending throbs of ache through her skull.

“That’ll be two galleons, 11 sickles and 27 knuts please.”

Leili handed over three galleons and took the book.

“Miss, your change!”

“Keep it!” Leili called on her way out the door, she just wanted to _go_.

She half-ran, half-speed-walked down the lane, up stairs, down stairs and through the barrel door when she got back to the common room.

“JO!” she called. “Jo, are you here?” the common room was basically deserted, except for a few kids studying by the hearth who frowned at her for shouting. She took more stairs at a jog, “Jo, I need to talk to you!” She wasn’t in their dorm either. “I guess she’s out.” She drew her wand to tap her charm bracelet and let Jo know she was back. Then she settled in to wait.

The silence in the room made the thoughts in her pounding head too loud, they were all she could hear and therefore all she could listen to and think about.

_I don’t need to tell Jo about this. I didn’t last time. But I should. She’d want to know._

_He hurt me._

_He_ scared _me._

_But he didn’t mean to…right?_

_I promised I’d tell her if I ever got hurt, but he didn’t_ mean _to knock my head into the wall or the floor. I should have just gone with it, then none of this would have happened… but I said stop. I said wait. He didn’t do anything wrong by asking me to apologize. It was right that he ask, he was probably ready to go and I stopped._

_But he took my book! That wasn’t fair of him. I was reading and he interrupted me, because_ he _wanted to have_ sex _!_

He _wanted_. He. _Not_ me. 

_I did kinda want it though… I was curious._ _…I should tell Jo._ _But if I tell her about today, I'll have to tell her about last time. I don’t want to tell_ ANYBODY _about last time. But I can’t get the feeling of his fingers out of my head..._

“NO,” she said firmly. “That was an invasion, it was _assault_ and he was wrong to do it.” _But I started it today… didn’t I?_ Suddenly she couldn’t remember. 

She squeezed her hands between her knees and tried to ignore the throbbing in both her head and her groin, “I am _losing_ my mind! Argh!” While she was broken out of her endless cycle of back and forth, she noticed she was shaking—not just shaking, _rocking_. She’d been rocking back in forth on her bed; knees pulled up to her chest and staring at nothing so hard her eyes were sore. She wasn’t sure when the last time she’d blinked was. 

For no reason other than to fill the sudden void in her ears, she said to herself, “Merlin, I’m cold. I need to get out of this dress.” She shucked it off and pulled out her favorite sweatshirt, jeans and knee-high socks, intent on hiding the bite mark. As she was tugging the socks on, she realized what she needed. The one thing that always helped: a swim. She left a note on the bedside table so when Jo did get back from wherever, she’d know where to come find her. Then she pulled on her suit and tossed her sweater over it before marching out of the House and into the corridors.

She tried to keep her mind focused but one thought kept intruding: _I should tell Jo._

“Swashbuckling,” she said to the bathroom door. She’d begged the password to the Prefects bathroom weeks ago, after a particularly stressful month had caused a delay in her period, which had caused _more_ stress, which in turn led to a missed period—stress was vicious like that. 

She nearly jumped out of her skin when her bracelet began to burn on her wrist. Jo was returning the signal and she hadn’t noticed. Now it was starting to hurt. She quickly cancelled the charm and unclasped the chain. 

The splash from her dive echoed through the tiled room.

Jo was on her way.

Leili wouldn’t tell her.

But Jo wasn’t stupid. 

She knew whatever it was that was causing Leili so much stress had to do with Oliver. She’d noticed the subtle changes, the times when the words that came out of her mouth would have been better suited to the Gryff’s, the way she’d tried to spend time with Jo but somehow always found it interrupted by Oliver. The little barbs Oliver used to describe Marcus had somehow found their way into—and out of—Leili’s mouth. The way she didn’t realize it wasn’t a thing she’d normally say until it was too late. The way she’d stopped coming to Quidditch practice.

“Hey!” Jo called as she entered the palatial bathroom. She rolled her pants up to her knees and sat down to dabble.

Leili came up, “Hi!” she grinned, swimming over to rest her hands on Jo’s feet.

“How was your date?”

“I got a new book,” Leili flipped onto her back to float aimlessly. She didn’t realize it, but she was avoiding meeting Jo’s eyes. Having her ears in the water had an added benefit of separating her from a conversation she didn’t want to have.

“Hm. What’s that on your neck?”

“Hmm? Where?”

“Around your collar. Looks like… maybe a hickey.”

“That formed fast,” she mumbled to herself.

“You bruise easily, we both know this. So what happened on this date?”

“Nothing. Some arguing. Some snogging. Apparently he bites.”

“Thus the hickey.”

“Thus the hickey,” Leili agreed before shaking it off. She flipped over to grin at Jo, “C’mon, come swim.”

Jo stripped down to her suit and cannon balled into the water. “So, what did you guys argue about?” Jo asked when she surfaced.

“Nothing important. He wants us—you and me, us—to stop hanging out. He’s jealous; it’s stupid. I was clumsy in the bookshop today. Hit my head on the wall, tripped and fell down the stairs kind of clumsy.”

“Did he help you fall down the stairs?”

“No, it was totally all me.” 

Jo’s vibes tingled; _lie._

_Why is she lying to me?_ Jo thought and opened her mouth to ask just that but managed to soften the question a little, accusations wouldn’t get anywhere; they’d just make Leili defensive and upset. “Leili—are you ok?”

Leili opened her mouth to say yes, absolutely, of course, but instead admitted, “I’m in over my head.”

Jo waited.

“I’m in over my head and I don’t know what to do.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing.”

“You can tell me anything, you know.”

“I do. I do know that, but I can’t. It’s nothing; it was my fault. My fault.”

Jo bristled, “I doubt that.”

Leili threw a bright, brittle grin her way before diving under the surface again.

“You’re not alone, Leili.”

“I know.”

“We can stay here until you feel better.”

“You know what would make me feel better?”

“Hm?”

“Changing the subject.”


	80. Thief

March 8th, 1995

Sixth year

\---

Care of Magical Creatures. One of the _best_ classes Hogwarts had to offer. Hufflepuff 6th years shared it with Gryffindor 6th years. Today they were learning about Swooping Evils. 

Hagrid walked out of his hut with five spiny green cocoons looking quite pleased with himself, “Now,” he said, flinging one cocoon above the class’ heads. They watched as it exploded into a vaguely triangular creature with large wings and three long, thin tails.

“These are _Swooping Evils,_ careful they don’ pounce on yeh, they like to stick their long tongues in yer ears and eat yer brain. Very misunderstood creatures, they only attack when provoked, otherwise they’re pleasant creatures.” He flung another into the air as he spoke.

“Now, I’ve fed them already today, so yeh should be nice and safe, but all the same, don’t provoke them. They can deflect certain spells simply be flying into them. Their backs are armored, see?”

“ _Awesome_ ,” Jo said watching the Swooping Evils swoop around. They were an iridescent blue with green armored backs and a vaguely skull-like face; Jo loved them.

“Now, before they suck yer brain out through yer ears they secrete a poison that has been proven to, when diluted, erase bad memories. That’s how wizards in New York were able to remain undetected. When they’re not flying, they wrap themselves up into cocoons and hang by their tails.” Hagrid beckoned the class closer and began to gingerly pass out the remaining three egg-shaped cocoons.

Unless you looked very, very closely you couldn’t see the seams in the Swooping Evil’s tight fold. The cocoons were surprisingly tiny for a fairly large creature. Jo held it up to eye level looking at all the spikes and pitying the predator that tried to eat these guys. Leili admired the long, strong tails before passing it on and watching the creatures swooping overhead. They glided more than they flew; they were very flexible, curling their wings in and doing somersaults on the air currents before stretching back out. “Amazing. What d’you think Jo? You want one?”

Jo laughed but had to agree they were pretty cool, she was really glad they’d stuck with Care of Magical Creatures for their N.E.W.T years. They’d transferred out of Divination early in their third year and as such had only been behind for a little while. Leili was particularly pleased with the choice; divination had been dull.

After class, Leili crouched down to pet a stray Niffler’s head, “Hello there, little escapee. Aren’t you cute?” she said, her bracelet slipping out from beneath her sleeve as she reached. Nifflers were renowned thieves and escape artists. She’d heard tell of one who’d broken into a sealed Muggle bank vault. The 4th years were learning about them this week and this one had somehow escaped the burrow Hagrid had made for them.

“Careful of your bracelet there,” Leili looked up at the sound of the boy’s voice, hand still extended toward the Niffler, “they like to steal shiny things,” he was silhouetted by the sun so she couldn’t make out his face, though it did set his red hair all aglow. 

She knew he was in Gryffindor though; she had a few classes with him, and so recognized his voice. Jo was off talking to Hagrid, trying to wring more details about Swooping Evils from him, like why the heck they were called ‘Swooping Evil’ and if she could keep one as a Guard Evil.

“I’d heard. That’s why I was trying to hide it. Obviously my plan failed,” she grinned and looked back at the Niffler, reaching to tuck the bracelet under her sleeve again only to see the furry beastie scampering away, bracelet in tow. 

“You brazen little thief!” She yelled, horrifyingly amused. Getting to her feet she raced after the sticky fingered fiend. She pulled a faceted prism keychain from her pocket as she ran; it was nothing magical, just shiny; she’d planned to use it as a zipper pull on her book bag but hadn’t gotten around to attaching it yet. 

“Jo! A little help?!”

Jo looked up at the sound of her name and then watched Fred as he watched Leili before she went to head the Niffler off at the pass. 

George came to stand next to his twin and watched Jo and Leili trade the prism for the bracelet and then snatch up the furry beastie by the scruff of his neck to bring him back to Hagrid. “You talked to her, mate!”


	81. Messy Break-Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot /begin/ to tell you how satisfying it was to write this one.

December 25th, 1994/Mid-March, 1995

Sixth Year

\--

** December 25th **

“Promise me something?” Jo asked, as the girls flaked out on their beds after leaving the Yule ball early, their dorm-mates Skye, Megan and Jeannie probably wouldn’t be back for a while.

“Hmm?”

“If he ever hurts you, you tell me.” 

Leili turned her head and looked at Jo, “I promise.”

** Four months later in Mid-March: **

They were fighting again. 

It was all they seemed to do these days and Leilani hated it. It turned her stomach into knots, but he was trying to control her again, like he’d control the hoops on the Quidditch pitch and she wouldn’t let him. She’d learned that lesson. Letting him take control made her inner voice scream that _she shouldn’t be doing_ whatever it was.

She aimed to dissolve their arguments before they got into screaming matches; generally this was accomplished by her walking away—he didn’t like that.

She was ignoring the problem, she knew, but she always intended to deal with it later when she, at least, was calm again. Unfortunately, it didn’t always work that way. In fact, it _never_ worked that way.

He’d seemed so nice when he’d asked her out the first time and then to the Yule ball. He’d also appeared a bit cocky and kind of full of himself at first, but he was a good Quidditch Captain and girls probably swooned the second they heard his accent, which, she had to admit was a delicious accent, one she’d taken to imitating—in private, of course. 

She’d watched him with his team during practice and he _was_ nice, especially to Harry. She couldn’t understand why he had to be different around _her_. 

At first she thought she could fix him, like she fixed everything for her firsties: homesickness? No problem.

Homework trouble? Easy peasy. 

Her own pain in the butt boyfriend? Not so easy. 

Kids were easy to help, slip an encouraging, anonymous note in with their books and watch their face light up when dozens of them fell out, a note from every Hufflepuff who had noticed. 

But him? She didn’t know how to help him. 

She thought she’d be able to bring out the good she saw in him when he was around Harry, but she’d been wrong. Instead, he’d gotten only more controlling, kept trying to isolate her, kept vying for her relationship with Jo. If he couldn’t have it, he didn’t want it to be there. 

The jealousy had been cute at first. Endearing. Amusing. But now it was just stupid and annoying. There was no reason for it, she didn’t hang out with other boys; she avoided Marcus just so Oliver wouldn’t get hot and bothered, but she couldn’t always do it. She tried not to do anything that might upset Oliver and that included flirting with him—the few times she’d tried it, things had gone too far and trying to put the genie back in the bottle had been hard.

He took interest in the things she did, often following her from one place to another, even when she didn’t ask. While he asked her about her latest book, she always had the feeling he was being polite. He didn’t really care what she was reading or doing in class but he did care about Quidditch. He insisted she go to all his practices and that he watch all of Hufflepuff’s. 

It seemed normal at first, he loved Quidditch, but more and more lately he seemed too interested, like he was memorizing how Hufflepuff played. When she’d said she didn’t want to go anymore, he’d been upset. They’d fought. She’d retracted her reluctance.

They were walking together when Leili’s bracelet began to heat up, “I’ve got to go, Jo’s calling,” she smiled.

“Stop hangin’ oot with Mon’gom’ry,” Oliver demanded. He’d broached the subject once before but had gotten distracted by the shortness of her velvet skirt.

“Never gonna happen,” Leili told him with a patient smile. “I’m told I have an ‘Unhealthy dependence’ on her.”

“Then stop hanging oot with Flint.”

“That’d be hard, since they are dating and are often _together_ as a result,” she told him. “Besides, he’s grown on me.”

“Then choose, them or us,” He’d been thinking about this particular ultimatum for a while. 

Leili stopped, a choice between someone she loved like family and a boy that seemed more and more a jerk? 

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that. Now, Jo needs me, so I’m going to go find her,” she began to turn away but he caught her wrist.

“You didnae choose.”

Her eyebrows shot up, eyes blinking incredulously at him. “No, I didn’t,” she frowned down at the hand around her wrist and pulled her arm free. She decided she needed to stop running away from this problem; she needed to do something about it, _now_. 

“I’m choosing her, because I’m done with this juggling act. I’ve known Jo since I was 9, she is my best friend, she’s like my sister and you are just a boy I thought I liked,” Leili said. Oh! It felt _good_ to get _that_ off her chest. Wow!

 **SLAP**

Her head snapped to the side and her jaw dropped. Small sparks of electricity danced across her skin, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck standing on end. She tried to process what had just happened, but her brain was screaming too loudly for her to think; so instead of standing there for a moment longer, she turned and ran back to her common room. 

Jo was halfway up the stairs by the time Leili burst in the door. “Jo!” she called as she rushed past Professor Sprout’s empty desk. 

Jo had known something wasn’t right; her fears had worsened when Leili never reactivated the protean charm. And then when they met in the middle of the common room and she saw the red mark on Leili’s cheek, everything clicked into place. 

_He’d hit her_. 

The bastard had _hit_ Leili! Jo stalked angrily past Leilani and tracked down Wood; she found him out on the Quidditch pitch. 

“Wood!” Jo snarled marching up to him. 

He turned and gave her that self-same cocky grin he’d used on Marcus at the Yule ball. 

This time, she didn’t pull her punch; she rammed it into his gut. While he was bent double she growled between clenched teeth, “If you touch her again, I will kill you. Do you understand? You don’t screw my family.”

Oliver coughed and looked up at Jo, conceit simmering in his eyes and collecting in the smug lines of his smirk, “Too late,” he coughed.

Her wand flashed and she was joined by a pack of very large, and very angry looking—possibly feral—dogs. 

Her eyes narrowed as she whispered a single word: “Kill.”

She watched as the beasts charged forward, watched as Oliver Wood ran screaming for his life in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. 

***

Meanwhile, Leili sank against the wall of their shared dormitory and pulled her knees to her chest trying not to cry. She closed her eyes and tried to control the lightning arcing over her body. 

“Leilani.” 

She jumped about three feet in surprise at the male voice in a girls’ dormitory, before she opened her eyes to see the house ghost hovering silently in front of her.

“Friar! You scared the bejeezus out of me! You’ve gotta quit the sneaking, you’re gonna give somebody a heart attack.”

“Well, what you like me to do? I can’t very well walk louder,” he smiled.

“Rattle some chains or something?” she offered.

“What happened?” he asked gently.

“I got into a fight with my boy—or well, _ex_ -boyfriend now I suppose—and he hit me. Jo’s off maiming him now,” she said, almost flippantly. 

She was not in a mood conducive to talking, or even _thinking_ about her feelings, so she changed the subject. 

“Hey, can you put your hand here?” she asked, pointing to the red mark on her face. 

The ghost obliged and Leili sighed, reveling in the feeling of the cold against her burning cheek. As she calmed down, so did the lightning. When she was once again safe to approach, the Friar left. In his wake came Jennie and Skye, carrying a quilt from the back of the largest coach in the common room. The honeycomb pieces were fashioned in Hufflepuff colors, shades of yellow and black. 

The girls sat down beside her and draped the quilt over their knees. Knowing full well how Leilani hated the sound of dead silence, they filled her ears with idle castle gossip while the sobs hit. They rubbed her back and passed over boxes of conjured tissues.

***

Back on the Quidditch pitch, Marcus came to stand next to Jo and they watched Wood run screaming into the Forbidden Forest, a pack of very rabid looking dogs hot on his heels. 

He looked at Jo and said, “I cannot tell you how _long_ I’ve waited to see that.”


	82. Halfway

April, 1995

Sixth Year

\--

Today was Leili’s 17th birthday. The Ministry applied Trace had broken this morning, she could do magic away from school with out having to be sneaky about it and she could Apparate at will, once she learned how. She and Jo had stayed at school for the Easter holiday this year; they’d had something they wanted to work on.

For the past several months they had worked with McGonagall on human Transfiguration. They weren’t getting anywhere on their own so she was scrapping that plan and starting over. 

Every morning at sunrise, their wand tips over their hearts the girls recited, “ _Amato Animo Animato Animagus.”_ Every evening at Sunset they chanted it again. There were complaints galore, mostly from the girls’ dorm-mates but also from the girls themselves who did not like waking before dawn.

Jo and Leilani snuck into one of the green houses and picked a single leaf each from the largest, healthiest Mandrake plant before literally running to their lesson with Professor McGonagall. 

She looked over the tops of her glasses at them. 

“Got our leaves!” Jo grinned. She was significantly _less_ out of breath than Leilani, who detested running.

“Shrink your leaves to a size you are comfortable with keeping in your mouth for a month. Small enough so it is out of the way, not so small that you won’t be able to retrieve it when it is time.”

Jo removed an earring, a roughly ten-millimeter sun. She placed it on a desk between the leaves she and Leilani had picked.

 _“Reducio_ ,” they cast, watching the leaves shrink. Jo replaced her earring when the leaves were done.

“Ok, now what?” Leili asked.

McGonagall rose from her desk and headed toward them, her robes rustling against her ankles. “Tip your head back.” Leili was the first to obey, Jo following half a second behind. McGonagall pressed her wand tip against the leaf on the table. When she lifted her wand, the leaf came with. “Lift up your tongue.” Leilani’s eyebrows pulled together as she opened her mouth and did as told. The leaf was fixed on the bottom of her tongue.

“Miss Montgomery, your turn.” 

When McGonagall’s back was turned, Leili stuck a finger under her tongue to poke at the strange feeling now residing there.

“Leave it _alone_ , Miss Akina,” McGonagall warned sternly.

Leili yanked her finger out of her mouth with an audible _pop_. “Yes, Professor.”

Jo snickered.

They checked every day to ensure their leaves were still there—otherwise they’d have to start all over.

McGonagall had insisted the girls collect the ingredients themselves, which saw the girls picking out several obscure, deep-shade spots weeks in advance looking for dew untouched by sunlight or human feet; this part they had to do on their own with no help from Professor McGonagall or each other. 

They started in the Artefact room and then the Room of Requirement. It was there that they parted company. Jo headed for the Quidditch pitch and Leili for the Whomping Willow.

When thirty days were up, the leaf was unstuck and dropped into a phial containing one Death’s Head Hawk Moth chrysalis and one freshly plucked strand of hair—“Ow! A little warning next time?” Jo and Leili yelped when McGonagall tore the hair from their heads.

The girls looked at each other, eyes wide, grins wider, “JINX!” they called, momentary pain forgotten.

“JINX AGAIN!”

They stared at each other.

“JINX!” Leili called, grinning fiendishly.

“JINXYOUOWEMEASODA!” Jo countered, eyes glittering.

Leili gasped in delight, “Shucks!” she said, not at all disappointed.

For the next two months the potions sat in the back of a locked cupboard in the Transfiguration classroom.

Today was the day they’d been waiting for.

Now, a lightning storm flashed above the castle and the potion in their hands turned blood red. It had never done _that_ when they’d tried it before. So it had been brewed correctly, that was something at least.

They’d received Professor McGonagall’s instructions that morning. The next step was to walk to either end of the Quidditch pitch where they would have plenty of room. From the middle, they turned and walked. The ground squelched beneath their boots, the rain came down in buckets, soaking the girls to the skin within minutes.

At the next lightning strike, they downed the potions in the phials. 

Oh dear gods, it _hurt!_ Every nerve screamed in instant pain. Areas they didn’t know they even _had_ hurt. 

Jo dug her fingers into the goal post—which in hindsight, she _probably_ shouldn’t have been touching in an electrical storm. 

Leili fell to her knees in the sodden grass and gulped down air, eyes squeezing closed. 

With the next flash of lightning an image flashed into the girls minds, different for both, similar only in that they both saw an animal. 

A second heartbeat joined the one they’d had since birth and with a roll of thunder: they changed.

Applause was the first thing their ears heard after. Professor McGonagall’s voice instructing, “Don’t panic” was the second. 

It took a minute because it seems the first thing their minds wanted to do _was_ panic. Sheer bloody panic.

Jo picked herself up off the ground, using the post to support herself as she stood upright. 

Across the field, Leili was more inclined to lie on her back with her arms out and her eyes closed. She couldn’t get the world around her to stop spinning.

Jo looked around, her distance vision was still as sharp as when her eyes had been human—better, even—but her nose! _Wow_! Her sense of smell was sharper than she could believe. She could smell so many things! The scent of the lightning was sharp and crisp; though the grass shoved up her nose made her sneeze when she bent down to sniff it.

She could see that her hands had been transformed into furry, dark colored paws with sharply curved claws. She turned her head in the lightning light to get a look at her body and saw sleek fur, the hint of a tail and rear paws. 

“Am I… a bear?” she tried to ask, only it came out as a sort of growl as her jaw and vocal cords had changed well beyond human speech.

Jo padded around the field, ambling over to where she had last seen Leili. She thought she could get used to being a bear; it was really quite comfortable. She liked having paws that padded softly as she walked. Though falling up to her chest in muddy puddles was not fun.

She exercised her vocal cords, trying to discover all the different sounds she could make now, she even discovered a sort of purr, which she found very intriguing. 

Professor McGonagall walked beside her asking questions and expecting full answers, not just a head shake up or down. Trying to give answers was frustrating.

Jo and Professor McGonagall came upon where Leili lay. 

“Are you alright Miss Akina?” Professor McGonagall asked.

Leili lifted one hand to show that she was still alive.

Jo whined a little and nudged Leili’s now tiny body with her own wet nose before giving in to a very cartoon-ey thing, she licked her. 

Leili squawked as her eyes flew open. “Did you just _lick_ me?!?” she demanded.

She lifted one hand to de-slime her face. She stopped short at the sight of a _wing_ where her hand should have been. She had seen the outline of a bird in her mind, she remembered now—the pain had taken something of a precedence over seemingly random images appearing in her head.

Jo blew something akin to a raspberry as the tried to get tiny muddy feathers off her tongue. When Leilani had transformed, she’d fallen straight into a soft, wet mud pit.

“Lets get you out of this rain,” Professor McGonagall said, helping Leili extricate herself from the muddy abyss.

Inside, McGonagall siphoned off the mud, leaving the girls simply wet. Jo shook herself off, her fur briefly poofing out to stand on end before lying flat again. 

Leili followed suit, figuring if it worked for Jo and dogs, it might work for her too. It helped; until she shook so hard she lost her balance and fell over.

Flat on her back, Leili crossed her still blue-grey eyes to look at the black beak on her face. She didn’t need to turn her head to look at her arms, now wings, skinny, grey, fuzzy _wings_. “It WORKED!” she literally chirped as she tried to roll over. She was stuck. Jo nudged her to her feet—talons. She had tiny talons now.

Professor McGonagall asked Leilani all the same questions she had asked Jo. Leili had an easier time answering, being a member of the parrot family. This was the main area in which she differed from an actual bird: she could speak, clearly, concisely and immediately while a true bird would take months to learn a handful of words. Not that she knew what she was yet; all she knew was that she was covered in tiny grey down.

“To transform back into yourselves, picture your body in your mind and will yourself back into it,” Professor McGonagall instructed.

The girls did as they were told and envisioned their human bodies with the intent of transforming back. 

It didn’t work. 

They were stuck. Professor McGonagall watched them struggle for a few minutes before flicking her wand at each in turn. A blue-white light flashed, leaving the girls human in its wake.

“You did well today, I’m proud of you. As you practice and grow, so will your animagus.” As it stood, their animagus forms were young; Jo was a cub, roughly three months old and Leilani a fledgling, maybe a month and a half old.

“Thank you, Professor,” they chorused. 

“Don’t thank me yet, you’re only half way. See me tomorrow at our usual time. Now, you’d best get back to your dormitory. Good night, Ladies.”

“Good night, Professor McGonagall!”

“Oh, and girls?”

They turned.

“Be sure to fill out the registration forms when they arrive.” Her look turned stern as she said, “if you do not, I will see it as a personal affront and drag you to the ministry myself.”

“Yes, Professor,” they promised. 

She stared them down for another moment or two before nodding her dismissal.

From there, the girls made their way to the showers. They were soaked to the skin, joys of having to be out in the middle of a storm to complete the process.

“I wonder what kind of bird I am…”

“Penguin,” Jo decided.

“I’m not a _penguin_!” Leili laughed in mock outrage.

“Yer a _penguin_ , Leili,” Jo imitated Hagrid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had it brought up to me that Animagi aren't capable of speech (as per Beedle the Bard, which I still haven't read) I don't know how hard and fast a rule that is so I'm taking a few liberties with Leilani's parrot form. Parrots /are/ capable of human-like speech so I'm saying that a parrot family animals is also capable of human-like speech, this would apply to any other birds with the same talent, Crows for example (Or so I've read).


	83. Woo me, Baby, one more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing chapters like these, the ones that show a side of Marcus canon doesn't get to explore. There sweet and wholesome and really fun.

May 1995

6th year

\--

It was a rare day this year to have a date with Jo and not have her scowl the whole time, Marcus mused as they walked down the hall. She’d been worried about Leilani up until recently, rightfully so if he were being honest. He’d known Wood from the tender age of eleven; he’d known it wasn’t a good match. But today was not a day to think on such things. 

Marcus had failed his OWLs last year on purpose. He’d wanted to stay with Jo and that was made harder if she were still in school and he wasn’t. There was also some messy family crap he was avoiding by staying in school. But, as before, today was not a day to think on such things.

He guided Jo, one hand hovering at the small of her back, the other over her eyes.

“Did you take me outside?” Jo asked, suddenly freezing.

“Nope,” he swept his hand out in a grand gesture, revealing the Room of Requirement all covered in snow.

“Did you shovel all this in yourself?” There were mounds providing cover and stockpiles of ready-made snowballs. 

Impressive… Very impressive.

“Fortunately, no. The room did it all by itself.”

“Hm. Disappointing. Well, if we’re going to have a snowball fight, I’m gonna need some gloves.” As soon as she asked, a pair appeared at her feet. “Ooh, gloves!” she snatched them up and tugged them on

“Why do you need gloves?”

“Because if we’re gonna do this, we’re doing it the muggle way: with our hands. And I don’t want to lose because my fingers fell off.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him. “So this is a contest, hmm?”

“Duh.”

“What do I get if I win?”

“What do you want?”

“I want…” he pressed a kiss to her jaw, thinking. Then to the other side. He hadn’t kissed her yet. Not really. He was waiting. Toeing the line. Finding her boundaries and slowly expanding them. “I want to meet your family.”

“And if I win?”

“I’ll buy you whatever book you want.”

“Oh-ho-ho-ho! Deal. Now, get yourself a pair of gloves. I don’t want to win because _your_ hands fell off.” She stepped out of the circle of his arms and with the casual grace of a girl with two siblings, scooped up a handful of snow. She compressed it into a crude ball and oh-so casually launched it at Marcus’ face.

The snow hit with a wet splat and he looked at her as it dripped down into his collar, “ _That_ was not nice.”

Jo shrugged, “Just b’cause I’m a ’Puff don’t mean I’m nice.” She flashed a wicked grin at him over her shoulder as she strutted away.

“Alright then, have it your way,” he gave her retreating back an equally wicked grin before launching into a running tackle. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she shrieked, turning in his arms as they went down, landing in a mound of loosely packed snow. 

“Gotcha,” he grinned. 

“Oh, you think so?”

He looked at her, looked around, looked back at her, “Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“Think again!” She declared as she shoved handfuls of snow down his shirt back. As she wiggled away she said, “So that’s two points for me and one for you.” She grabbed two snowballs at her feet and launched them at him. He ducked, and then retaliated.

“ACK!”

“Three,” Marcus smirked after delivering unto his girlfriend’s face two snowballs in quick succession.

“Oh, you’re gonna pay for that!” The room decided to create small stockpiles of snowballs and scattered them, leaving trails here and there, mounds this way and that. It also provided convenient hills to take cover behind. When Jo popped up to launch, a snowball hit her on the nose. “Four,” he called casually. She retaliated, upping her score to three.

The day continued on, the room replenishing their stock-piles as needed. Jo tackled him into a large hill and then proceeded to scoop the snow around them, onto him. He didn’t move.

She sat, straddling his hips. He still didn’t move.

She poked his side, nothing.

Just when she began to worry, he threw his upper body put of the snow, crying, “RAHHH!”

She shrieked in surprise as he sat up like a vampire (with a whole lot more speed and force) and caught her wrists. He swept his knees and feet out as he pressed his hips up, pitching her backwards, dropping her into the snow. They blinked at each other for a moment, him grinning fiendishly and then she started laughing. “You scared the hell out of me!” she accused. She wanted to throw snow in that grinning face but he still had her wrists.

“Give up?”

“Not just yet, I think.” Her feet were free, so were her legs, there was space between his sips and hers. If she was _just flexible enough_ , she could get her feet against his abs—no, she couldn’t. She wasn’t _that_ flexible. 

He traced her jawline with the tip of his nose. 

She shoved her knee in his spleen.

“There will be _no_ adult-type touching. Or anything that would feasibly _lead_ to adult type touching,” she proclaimed as he huffed out a not-quite pained groan.

“Why not?” he asked, still groaning. Knees and spleens do not mix.

“I want to be wooed, damn it. Is a little romance too much to ask?”

“Wooed?”

She nodded once, sharply, “Woo me.”

_Woo me, Baby, one more time._

“I can do that,” he agreed, letting her up. 

He swept a bow, dark hair flopping over his forehead as he took her hand and kissed it. He stood, took a step closer and pulled her into dance frame, softly tapping out a beat against her shoulder blade and leading her into a waltz.

123, 123, 123. 

Back, side, together. 

Forward, side, together. 

Rotate, travel, turn, frame.

123, 123, 123.

“What’re you doing?”

“Wooing you.”


	84. Falling... Falling... Falling in love.

June 1st, 1995

Sixth Year

-

Leili sat in the tallest Quidditch ring on the field, it had taken her a long while to not only get over the dizzying feeling of being up so high but to get comfortable, she’d managed with no fewer than 6 cushioning charms, possibly more—she’d lost count. She sat there, one foot hanging out of the ring, the other pressed up against the cool metal, reading. Jo had a date with Marcus so Leili was left to her own devices for a while. 

“What are you doing up here?”

Leili sat bolt upright and turned to find the source of the voice that had snuck up on her, then with a yelp and a flail she began to fall. Suddenly she was hurtling towards the ground but right before she got the chance to shift, a hand grabbed the back of her robes and gently brought her back down to solid ground. 

“Is this how Neville feels?” she wondered briefly. Once her feet touched the ground, the hand released the back of her robes; she turned to see one of the red headed twins of Gryffindor grinning impishly at her from a broom, “Tell me you didn’t do that on purpose…”

“What? Knock you out of your perch? Nope, that was all you,” the redheaded boy grinned as he landed and dismounted. 

She narrowed her eyes at him, debating whether or not to believe him. Then, seemingly decided, she smiled, “Leilani, my friends call me Leili.” 

The twin smiled and said, “I know who you are,”

“Oh, ’cause _that_ didn’t sound ominous at all!” Leili snorted, the boy grinned wider. 

“Wood mentioned you,” his face twisted like he’d tasted something altogether unpleasant and she swallowed her initial _he talked about me?_ response. “And we’re in the same Defense Against class …and I saw you at the Yule Ball.” 

Leili nodded, “I’m not surprised, it was quite the debacle,” she said, referring to the ball. “As for Wood…” she scowled.

“You know there’s a rumor that you dumped him because you secretly have a thing for your best friend,” he interrupted.

Leili blinked before she burst out laughing. “People seriously think that? Oh, that’s _good_! I’ll have to tell Jo when she gets back from her date. No, I broke up with him because he was a jerk, I should have done it sooner,” she explained. 

“You don’t have to explain it to me. Besides, I know Jo’s dating Flint. She’s a good Beater. Though what she sees in Flint—”

“He’s not actually all bad once you get used to him.” They had dissolved into small talk now and it was becoming increasingly awkward as they each tried to think of what to say next. 

He’d been waiting to catch her alone for years and then when she began dating his Quidditch captain he’d nearly lost all hope but now, now that she’d told him she was single, he didn’t know what to say. 

She solved that problem when her mouth quirked up into a sly smile, “Hold on, _you_ know _my_ name, it’s hardly fair that _I_ don’t know _yours_.” 

“You don’t know who I am? I’m hurt, Leilani!” he jested, covering up the disappointment that she didn’t know him.

“Oh, now hang on just a minute here!” she gasped, feigning insult. “That’s not what I said! I said I don’t know your _name_. I know you’re a Weasley. I know you’re either George or Fred; I _could_ guess, but I don’t want to guess wrong,” she explained, slightly teasing. “I haven’t had the opportunity to learn to tell you apart, yet," she added sheepishly. "You’re usually together.”

“Fred,” he told her with a puckish smile, “Nice to finally meet you, Leilani.” He offered her his hand and she took it. It wasn’t really a hand _shake_ since there was no bobbing up and down and they stood there holding the other’s hand a bit more than was perhaps warranted but neither seemed to mind.

“ _You_ warned me about that little Niffler stealing my bracelet,” she realized and then remembered something Jo had told her months ago, something she’d nearly forgotten in the chaos of this year, “and _you_ carried me to the hospital wing at the beginning of term, after that disaster of a Defense Against the Dark Arts class…” she smiled, still holding his hand. “You weren’t there when I woke up… Why didn’t you stay?” she asked, her tone taking on a dreamy edge. 

He’d wanted to. He’d wanted to stay there and hold her hand until she woke up—and for a while after. He’d wanted to introduce himself properly but… “You were dating Wood and Madam Pomfrey kicked me out. I came back, but you were with Montgomery.” 

If the charm bracelet around Leili’s wrist hadn’t begun to warm they probably would have continued to stand there, holding hands for a while yet. As the bracelet began to heat considerably, Leili broke contact and drew her wand. Touching the tip to the chain, the bracelet began to cool and in response the pentacle necklace Jo always wore began to warm. 

Leili grinned as she put her wand away, “Jo’s calling.” She caught the curiosity on Fred’s face and explained, “There’s a Protean Charm on my bracelet and her necklace; it’s how we communicate across distance. We meet up in our common room. Anyway, I should go. Thank you for catching me. I’ll see you later.” 

She waved goodbye and turned to walk back to her common room, she hadn’t gotten more than a few steps before Fred caught up to her, he was going to walk her as far as he could.

“Which time?”

“Hmm?”

“‘Thank you for catching me’, which time?”

She laughed, “Both times.”

“So how did you get up in that ring anyway?” Fred asked.

Leili laughed again and said, “I flew.” 

“I didn’t see a broom,” Fred objected.

“Who says I need one?” 

Fred looked askance at her and she grinned. 

It wasn’t a lie; she did fly, just not via broomstick. She’d used her animagus form, something she was not _technically_ supposed to do. She and Jo had agreed to not use their new talent in public, but there was no one around and she hadn’t stayed in bird form for long. Plus she wanted to get used to flying, she’d gotten her flying feathers in only recently.

When they got to the Hufflepuff basement, she tapped on the correct barrel and four lids opened, offering Fred a rare glimpse down the revealed corridor of the inside of the Hufflepuff common room. 

“By the way, I wouldn’t have minded if you’d interrupted my conversation with Jo in the hospital wing. You were worried about me. I'd've thought it was sweet.” By some miracle she wasn’t blushing, _yet_.

“Would you go for a butterbeer with me?” he asked.

She discovered that the more she stared at them, the prettier his eyes were. They were brown, but she’d never realized brown had so many colors in it. Chocolate and sunshine gold mixed with amber.

“I’d like that,” she answered, then, she turned and hurried through the tunnel. 

When the barrel door closed, Fred punched both fists into the air, “YES!”

Jo was waiting outside the door, tapping her toes and checking her watch. “Where’ve you been? I called you ages ago!” Then she noticed that Leili’s face was turning red. “Are you _blushing_?” Jo asked, all agog.

“I _think_ I just agreed to go out with a boy,” Leili said in a quiet voice as she sat with a soft _thump_ on one of the cushy armchairs their common room was famous for. She sounded vaguely surprised.

“ _Really_?” Jo asked, intrigued. “Who?”

A dreamy little smile twitched across Leili’s lips. She pressed them together before admitting, “Fred Weasley.”

Unknowingly mirroring Fred, Jo threw both fists in the air, “YES!”

“Whaddya mean _yes_?” Leili squawked.

“It is about bloody time! When are you going out?”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t know? Oh gods, Jo! I’m not ready for this!”

Jo sobered instantly, “Then don’t go. If he’s anything like how I _think_ he is, he’ll wait.”

Leili frowned at her, “But… I _want_ to…” She wasn’t _ready_ but she _did_ want to go. It was a conundrum. 

Jo grinned widely, “Then go. C’mon,” Jo thumped her hand on the couch, “tell me _everything.”_

Leili smiled, embarrassed but happy, “He was sweet…and funny and oh _god_ is he _cute_!”


	85. 20 Questions

June 13th, 1995

Sixth Year

\--

Leilani and Fred sat in the Three Broomsticks laughing at something he’d said. They’d gotten over first date awkwardness by playing a version of 20 questions, they each got to ask a question and they each had to answer it, it could be one word or a paragraph but it had to be an answer. Exceptions were made if the answer was already known, then they could skip to the next question. It was her turn. 

“Who is your best friend?” she asked.

“Lee Jordan. Why is Montgomery yours?”

“I met Jo when I was nine, and it seems that there is something about a friendship where screaming and nearly having a heart attack is involved that seems to cement it. She once described us as two halves of one brain. We finish each others sentences, laugh till we cry—over something completely ridiculous, by the way—it’s little wonder people think I’ve got a thing for her.” Leilani grinned. “Basically, a shy little girl was met by an uncontrollable force who offered her an instant friendship, and we’ve been joined at the hip ever since.” She groaned after a moment, “and now I’m just _sappy_.” She took a drink to cover her embarrassment. “Why is Lee _your_ best friend?”

“Because he’s just as crazy as me and George,” Fred said simply. “Who are you closest to in your family?”

“My dad, he’s a mediwizard at St. Mungo’s in the research department of the spell damage wing. His job is to help find cures and treatments for things like Dark curse damage. But since my sister and I were little he’s brought home stories about people who’ve splinched half their faces off or tried to become Animagi without the proper training, among other things. These are just patients he sees on his way to work, he doesn’t actually get to treat any of them.”

Fred grimaced and Leili grinned wickedly, “I haven’t even told you the worst part, he liked to tell these stories over dinner.” Fred’s grimace deepened and Leilani laughed, “It’s kind of his way of teaching caution. If he had gone to Hogwarts I think he’d have been in Ravenclaw, he’s one of those ‘knowledge for curiosity’s sake’ types.” 

“Homeschooled?” Fred inquired. Some parents opted to teach their own children.

“Mm-mm, Ilvermorny. He was born in Hawaii so he went to school in Massachusetts. Both Horned Serpent and Pukwudgie wanted him, he chose Pukwudgie in the end. Anyway, what is your most vivid childhood memory _or_ , your favorite childhood prank?”

Fred grinned, “George and I set off a dung bomb under our Great-Aunt Muriel’s chair during dinner one Christmas. She never came back after that.”

Leilani laughed at the glittering triumph in Fred’s grin, at the same time, she took a sip out of her gilly water—she didn’t much care for butterbeer. She wound up choking and spluttering as she laughed.

“What about you?” he asked after she had finished coughing.

“Um,” she said when she recovered, “My most vivid childhood memory is probably from when I was about 8 and I fell into a river while on vacation. My sister and I were out wading, I was in up to about my knees and I took a step too far, didn’t see that there was a steep slope right there and I got dunked up to my eyeballs in fresh spring melt ice water. It was so cold that I couldn’t breathe, let alone remember how to swim out of a current. The current pulled me out too far and my sister had to come rescue me. Kanani lost a favorite pair of shoes that day. She still won’t talk to me about it,” Leilani grinned. 

“And your favorite childhood prank?”

“I don’t actually have any. I never really had the mind for pranks; I could appreciate them just fine, as long as they were being done to _other_ people. As a kid, I did not take kindly to people trying to prank me, since my birthday is so close to April fool’s, so most people just left me alone. Plus, when you’re poised to whack them upside the head with a really heavy book, people tend to be a little nicer to you. I do have some fantastic ideas I borrowed from a TV show I watch over summer.”

“When’s your birthday?”

“April 2nd. My mom _refused_ to have an April fool’s baby.”

“George and I _are_ April fool’s babies,” he grinned.

“Well that explains a lot!” they laughed.

“You’re half-blood, right?”

Leili nodded, “You’re wondering how mum took the news that she was dating a wizard?”

It was his turn to nod.

“She laughed for like a week straight. Or at least, that’s how dad tells it. She thought he was kidding. It didn’t help that he chose Halloween to tell her, he showed up in full robes, she was Raggedy-Annie that year—”

“Raggedy who?”

“Annie, she’s a doll. Here, I’ve got this picture…” Leili dug in her purse for the photo, it was small, only a couple inches tall. In it, her dad stood next to her mom who was wearing a red dress, white apron, tall red and white striped socks and a pair of black shoes. He on the other hand, was wearing robes. Full wizarding robes, complete with pointy hat and Ilvermorny pin.

“Anyway, he did a few simple spells to convince her, she tried to deny it for about a week, but he managed to convince her he wasn’t crazy.”

“Do you like Quidditch?”

“I do—hang on, I thought it was my turn? Cheater,” she mock-glared.

“You can have two after this.”

“I don’t actually have a question for you right now. Anyway, yes, I like Quidditch.”

“Do you play?”

“Not where people can see. I’m not very good.”

“You said your dad is American.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you do the accent?”

Leili blinked slowly and tried not to smile—she couldn’t do it if she was smiling, something about the way her lips were positioned made it hard—and when she opened her mouth again was pure American. “I can do a couple of accents. Including my own, I’ve got American and Scottish down pretty pat, Irish—ehh, not so well. That one’s more of a fluke.”

“Wicked,” Fred enthused. “How long can you keep it?”

“Depends,” Leili grinned, people didn’t normally get so excited over her talent with accents.

“On?”

“Little things. Like who it is I’m talking to, if I’m actively trying to keep it or shake it, if I can avoid smiling on certain words. I used to get stuck. Had to stop talking to people for a bit, had to relax, get the sounds out of my head.”

Now for the question he’d been waiting all night to ask, “Tell me something no-one else knows about you.”

She tilted her head at him, struck by the question and how sweet she thought it was. “Do you want me to keep the accent?”

A challenging gleam twinkled in his brown eyes, “If you can.”

She sat and thought a while; so long in fact that he didn’t think she was going to answer. Finally she found the answer, “I like frozen Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. They’re probably my favorite candy.”

“I don’t know them.”

“Not surprised, Muggles hand them out on Halloween. I throw mine in the freezer when I get home from Trick-or-Treating. They never fully freeze so when you bite into them they’re just perfectly chilled.”

“Tell me something else?”

“Ok, um… Does it have to be something no-one else knows? ‘Cause I think I’m fresh out of those.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“Ok. Well…” Once again she thought a while, trying to come up with something little known and obscure, she could come up with just one more. “Ok, ok, ok. When I was four years-old, my grandmother declared that all I ever talked about were fictional princesses, Cinderella this, Sleeping Beauty that, Snow White, Maid Marion… anyway, she decided that I was unhealthily obsessed with story book princesses so she bought me a _new_ book with Real-life Princesses. She thought this was clever and maybe I’d learn something real instead of jabbering on about glass slippers and foxes playing badminton. She was right, I learned a lot from that book—haven’t seen it in a while, come to think of it. Anyway, her scheme had the unintended consequence of hooking my imagination on _the_ most tragic story in the whole book. The one where the princess and her family were gathered into the cellar and summarily shot _slash_ stabbed to death, taken out into the woods, doused with acid, burned and buried. They still haven’t found them all.”

Fred choked on his butterbeer, “Blimey, Leilani!”

She winced, “Sorry, was that too much?” She hadn’t thought about the story’s end when she’d started it.

“You were _how_ old?”

She held up four fingers. Somewhere in the midst of this, the borrowed accent dropped and her own returned, neither had noticed when it happened, only that it had.

“Merlin!”

“Needless to say, she was rather horrified when my topic of choice veered from talking animals to the horrific death of seven people and their dogs. So! I’ve given you two obscure facts about me, it’s your turn.”

He told her about growing up a twin, turning Ron’s teddy bear into a spider, feeding Ron an acid pop and almost getting him to swear an unbreakable vow—and the spanking that followed. 


	86. Downtime

June 16th, 1995

6th year

\---

Leili had a new book today. _Good Omens_ by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. A demon loses the new-born Anti-Christ and proceeds to muck up the coming Apocalypse. Sort-of.

She had found a shady tree and sat beneath it to read. Several chapters later, she was discovered by Fred who sat down beside her, seemingly content to just hang out while she read.

It was a deeply engrossing and hilarious story.

Eventually, intrigued by her gasps and giggles and declarations of, “oh, no!”, “What’s so funny?” Fred asked.

Eyes sparkling, she read, “‘[Crowley] had heard about talking to plants in the early 70’s, on Radio 4, and thought it was an excellent idea. Although _talking_ is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did. What he did was put the fear of God into them. 

More precisely, the fear of Crowley.

In addition to which, every couple of months, Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn't look _quite_ as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. ‘Say goodbye to your friend,’ he'd say to them. ‘He just couldn't cut it…’

Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuous around the flat. The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified.’” 

Fred snorted and Leili continued grinning like a maniac. Unable to resist sharing this new gem with someone who seemed interested, she continued reading. Somehow, his red head wound up in her lap and her fingers in his hair. At the end of each page, she dropped the book down to his level and he would turn it for her.

At the end of one chapter, she paused, dropping the book to her side, “Fred, can I ask you a question?”

“Always.”

“D’you… do you mind if I… if I don’t watch your Quidditch practices? I just—I just don’t want to… see him… right now. …Maybe ever... Is that ok? I’ll still come to the games, if you want me to.”

Fred sat up, leaning on one arm so they were roughly eye level. Her voice had quavered and now that he looked at her, he could see the fear in her face; the way her lips pressed together, the little crease between her brows, the uncertainty in her eyes, like she expected him to yell at her.

“You don’t have to go anywhere or see anyone you don’t want to.”

“Really?”

 _Merlin, what did Wood do to her?_ Fred wondered. “Really.”

The smile she gave him lit up her whole face, he did his level best to memorize it. Reaching out, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Do me a favor? Don’t lie back down?”

“Making you uncomfortable?”

She continued smiling at him, “Only in the sense that your head is heavy and I’m losing feeling in my legs.”

Fred laughed and obliged, moving back to sit beside her. Leili shook her legs out before curling them up and leaning on his shoulder to continue reading.


	87. Oblivious

June 18th, 1995

Sixth year

\---

“Hey, Jo?” Leili asked.

“Hmm?” Jo hummed drowsily.

“How long have you known?”

“Known what?”

“That Fred likes me.”

“Years,” Jo grinned.

“Years?” Leili squeaked, her hands stopping. She’d been braiding Jo’s hair, had nearly put her to sleep with the constant brushing.

“Why?”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“I thought about it, once. It wasn’t my business. Are you mad?”

“No. …Am I really that oblivious?”

Jo laughed, “Yes!”

“Ohh,” Leili moaned, dropping her face into her hands, embarrassed. 

Jo withdrew her hair and turned around, “Ok, maybe not _that_ oblivious. He was subtle about it. I thought for sure he might say something when that Niffler stole your bracelet.”

“I think he might have if not for the _Niffler_ stealing my _bracelet_ , I had to run after it, remember? Not a lot of time to confess your crush to someone when they’re chasing after a beast that stole their charm bracelet.”

“Touché.” 

“Years?” she murmured, astonished. “ _God_. And I didn’t even notice, I’m an idiot.” Leili ran her fingers back through Jo’s hair as she turned around again.

“Nah, just oblivious.”


	88. Witness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next, oh, 5? chapters were really fun for me to write.

June 23rd, 1995  
Sixth Year  
-

Harry and Cedric had agreed, they would take the cup together and secure not a House victory, but a _school_ victory. It was better that way. They reached for the cup. They were a finger's breadth away when it went flying away, almost as though it had been yanked by an invisible thread.

Harry and Cedric were standing where the Triwizard cup had been moments ago. They looked at each other in bewildered confusion, was this part of the task? And then, just as they started back down the maze to try and re-locate the cup, pain exploded in Harry's scar. When Harry opened his eyes again, he didn't hear Cedric, he didn't see the maze, he saw a graveyard and he heard Wormtail telling his master the plan had gone wrong. A minute later he heard a voice from his nightmares. Beside him, Cedric sent up red sparks with his wand and Professors Moody and Dumbledore arrived soon after.

"What happened?" Moody demanded of Cedric.

"I don't know, sir, one minute we were about to take the cup and the next it was gone and then Harry…"

"Harry," Dumbledore said calmly, "what are you seeing?"

"Wormtail has a girl tied to a headstone," Harry gasped out. "Voldemort's there! The girl, she's a student here, a Hufflepuff," he could tell by the black and yellow tie.

"Do you know her, Potter?" Moody asked, Harry shook his head, 'no'. He didn't have any friends in Hufflepuff, except Cedric and they weren't _friends_ exactly. He didn't recognize the girl so she probably wasn't in his year.

Harry watched Wormtail drop a bone into a giant cauldron and then chop off his own hand and drop it into the cauldron. Harry related these events to Dumbledore and Dumbledore blasted a path through the maze helping Harry through while Moody and Cedric followed behind. About halfway through the maze Harry let out an anguished scream, Voldemort was rising from the Cauldron, whole, alive and not entirely human.

"He's back," Harry gasped. "Voldemort is back!"

"What about the girl, Potter?" Moody asked gruffly as Cedric moved to help support Harry's weight.

"I dunno, but Voldemort is doing something to Wormtail's arm and it hurts... it's the Dark Mark. He's... he's pressing on it." Harry inhaled once, deep and hissing, trying to breathe through the pain in his head. "There are people there now, Death Eaters, he's... he's scolding them, he's disappointed they didn't try to find him. The girl, there's two of them, they're trying to escape."

"Two Hufflepuff girls?" Cedric asked, bewildered.

"Harry, can you tell me what graveyard you see? Where is it?"

"I dunno. They're running and he's mad." The four of them had reached the outer hedge of the maze and the band began to play but they stopped when they noticed something wasn't right.

"Harry, tell me what you see."

"The taller one, she's bleeding, but the other is at the cup. He's going to kill them!" A minute later, there was a loud pop, a soft thump and a shrill scream, before it went dark and Harry was looking once again at the Hogwarts Quidditch stands.

Oblivious to the hundreds of eyes trained on them, Leilani held herself over Jo, the very air around them crackling with more lightning than she'd ever before conjured. Cedric's eyes went wide.

Professor Moody hobbled over, taking Leilani's shoulders and trying to pry her away from Jo. With a loud crack of lightning striking, a bolt shot out from Leilani and struck him in the chest, sending him flying back towards Harry.

The lightning in the air around her made strands of Leilani's hair stick out, she looked vaguely like a threatened porcupine. The front of her uniform was drenched in blood. Her eyes were wide open but not seeing.

"Alastor, take Harry and Cedric to your office, I'll be along shortly!" Dumbledore ordered.

Moody managed to stand up with a groan; Leilani had _really_ gotten him, "Potter, Diggory, let's go."

Cedric and Harry moved along just in front of Professor Moody as Dumbledore crouched down beside Leilani. He touched her shoulder, only to be flung several feet away when the lightning connected with his hand. The bolt that struck him was thinner and weaker than the one that had struck Mad-Eye. When he thought on it later it was rather like the difference between a stun gun and sticking his finger in a light socket, more shock than actual pain—though there was a bit of sharpness to it.

Professor Sprout crouched beside her two students, "Leilani, what happened?"

Shaking, Leilani continued to say nothing.

Madam Pomfrey hurried down the stands and came to kneel by Jo. A few wand waves and whispered words stopped Jo's bleeding and began to slowly knit the wounds. She had still lost a lot of blood, but she'd survive, especially once they could get a blood replenisher in her system.

Dumbledore stood, brushed himself off and turned to Professor Sprout, "Pomona, if you would?"

"Leilani, it's alright, you're safe. You're both safe," and very gently, very slowly Professor Sprout laid her hand on the back of Leilani's head, pulling it back at the first hint of electric shock, like touching metal on a static-y day. "It's all right dear; you can relax now. Relax and let us take care of everything. It's all right now, it's all going to be okay." The zap stung, she shook her hand out, trying to stop the tingling in her fingertips.

Leilani wasn't cognizant of where she was or that she'd even left the graveyard. She wasn't even aware people she ordinarily trusted were talking to her. She was essentially unconscious; her body just didn't know it yet.

Fred raced across the grass, dropping to his knees beside her, "Leilani…" He covered her hand with his, his thumb stroking her knuckles. He could feel the current under his hand, but it didn't attack him. He didn't stop to wonder why, especially since no one else could touch her.

"Leilani. Lei," he murmured, sliding a hand along her jaw, turning her face so she was looking at him. Her pupils were dilated and her eyes were glassy, her lips were taking on a faint blue tint. She looked at him, but she didn't _see_ him. She wasn't breathing and it scared him.

His thumb stroked her cheek, "Hey, heyheyhey, I've got you. Breathe, Lei. It's ok; you're safe. I've got you." He was trying to get her attention, but she wouldn't or couldn't give it to him.

Suddenly, her face went slack and her hand loosened around her wand. Her eyes rolled back into her head and the lightning abruptly died. Fred caught her when she passed out. "Leilani?" No response. "LEILANI!" He half-shouted, shaking her shoulder.

"She's in shock, Mister Weasley, don't try to wake her," Madam Pomfrey chided.

Professor Sprout gently extricated Leilani from Fred's arms and stretched her out on the grass. Madam Pomfrey gingerly poked and prodded, diagnosing broken ribs and a punctured lung, "Good job, Mister Weasley."

"Will she be ok?"

In a tone of voice that denoted a rolling up of sleeves and getting to work, she replied, "As soon as I get this lung re-inflated, she will."

Collectively, Moody, Harry and Cedric made their way to Moody's office where he securely shut and bolted the door. He hobbled in front of the boys and dropped a stool down, "Just set him there, Diggory."

Cedric did as he was told, helping Harry to sit down. A loud yell came from the trunk beside them.

"Wouldn't believe me if I told you what's in there." Moody pulled at his collar and reached for his flask, it was empty. "Did you see Death Eaters?" he asked.

"Yeah, loads," Harry said. His scar still hurt, but a little less now that the two Hufflepuffs were back on school grounds.

"How did he treat them? Were they forgiven?"

Cedric frowned; these were odd questions, weren't they? But then again, maybe not; If You-Know-Who _didn't_ forgive his followers then, perhaps, the army he was amassing would be smaller, if only slightly.

Moody rolled his neck and started hunting through the bottles in a box. "I asked you, if he forgave the filth that never even looked for him? The ones who were happy to wreak havoc at the world cup but scattered like rats from a sinking ship when I fired the Dark Mark into the sky."

"You fired…?" Both boys asked.

"Yes, _I_ fired!" He moved on to the bottles in the cabinet.

"But it was Karkaroff who put my name into the Goblet…" Harry said sluggishly, trying to fit the pieces together.

Cedric knew something was wrong now; he drew his wand and aimed it at Moody's back.

"Who are you?" Cedric demanded.

The sound of Moody's eye swiveling in its socket was the only warning they had, " _Avada Kedavra_!"

"No!" Harry yelled, but it was too late. Cedric crumpled to the floor, eyes wide and empty, staring at the ceiling. Dead.

"It wasn't Karkaroff who put your name into that goblet Harry, _I did_. _I_ nudged Hagrid into showing you the Dragons, miserable oaf. Who told poor, dead, Diggory to open the egg underwater? _I did_!" Moody made a noise halfway between a gasp and a gag and his fingers scrabbled at the strap on the magical eye. " _I_ staged a loud conversation with Minerva McGonagall about whether you would be smart enough to think of using gillyweed in the second task, your little elf friend ran right to you! Diggory was just a spare, he was never supposed to win."

Harry moved to pick up Cedric's wand, he'd dropped his own in the maze, but Moody spun around and aimed a wand at Harry's heart.

" _Stop right there_ , Potter. The Dark Lord didn't manage to kill you, boy, and he _so_ wanted to," whispered Moody. "Imagine how he will reward me when he finds I have done it for him. I will be honored beyond all other Death Eaters. I will be his dearest, his closest supporter… closer than a son…"

A loud bang resounded from the door, but it was tightly barred.

"You did not defeat the Dark Lord, but now, now _I_ shall defeat _you! Avada Kedav—Oof,"_ Moody grunted, the interrupted curse dying in his mouth. 

Marcus Flint had blasted down the door, and (in a running shoulder tackle worthy of American Football) rammed his shoulder into Moody—who didn't look altogether like Moody anymore—knocked him to the ground, killing the deadly curse. Marcus, who had been sitting near the girls when they'd disappeared, had been pacing a corner of the Quidditch pitch when he heard the collective gasp from the crowd.

Wondering what the crowd could be possibly gasping at _now_ and daring to hope it was Jocelyn and Leilani returned, he'd looked over. What he saw made his stomach plummet through to his shoes. There was Jocelyn, alright; passed out on the grass with a barely conscious, shaking Leilani somehow managing to hold herself protectively over her.

His instincts told him to go to his girlfriend, instead he flagged down Professor Snape. His attention snapped back to the field on hearing the sizzle and crack of lightning under a clear sky. With no time to explain what was happening, Marcus took off after Moody with his Head of House following close behind.

Straddling Moody's barrel chest, Flint landed punch after punch after punch into the sweaty, and now also bloody, face and shouted, "Imposter! He's an imposter, he's been drinking Polyjuice all year!"

Snape drew his wand. He trusted Flint: he was a good student, smart, and someone _had_ been stealing from his private stores.

Dumbledore followed close behind Snape with McGonagall close behind him.

"Come along, Potter," McGonagall said, her arms out and beckoning. Harry limped straight to her and the other three teachers descended on the imposter.

"Severus, if you would," Dumbledore said.

Snape drew from his robes a small green bottle that Harry recognized as the Veritaserum he had been threatened with earlier that year. Snape popped the top open and poured the contents down Not-Moody's throat. As they watched, the grizzled hair turned short and straw colored. The face became thinner, with a pointed chin and pale, freckled skin.

"Barty Crouch, Junior."


	89. Triwizard Lecture One

June 23rd, 1995

Sixth Year

\--

Aloiki Akina was furious. 

He alternately stood and sat and paced up and down in Dumbledore’s office, fuming. He hadn’t liked the idea of having a dangerous tournament hosted at his daughter’s school from the very beginning but his letter to the Ministry had gone unnoticed and the ‘ _game’_ had been played anyway. The Ministry _had_ imposed a new rule declaring all students must be seventeen to compete, this had ruled out Leilani as a competitor, much to Aloiki’s relief at the time. 

Now his youngest daughter and her best friend—practically another daughter by this point—were lying unconscious in the Hospital Wing. Twenty minutes before his arrival at the school, Head of Hufflepuff House Pomona Sprout had Floo Powdered unexpectedly into his living room. She came bearing the worst news of his life; his daughter had been injured in the very Tournament he hated. 

The Triwizard Tournament was dangerous and irresponsible, why would a school, a _school_ for Isolt’s sake _,_ host a series of games where the probability of injury was so high? In the middle of Aloiki’s furious pacing, the office door opened and in walked Dumbledore. 

“Hello, Aloiki.”

Having been born in Hawaii, Aloiki had attended Ilvermony instead of Hogwarts, but Dumbledore made it a point to know the names, at least, of his students’ parents, especially when those students were injured. 

“Your daughter is fine, no permanent injuries. She broke a few ribs, but mostly is suffering from shock. Madame Pomfrey is patching her up now. Now, I understand you have something you’d like to say to me?”

Oh, did he ever! 

“Headmaster, _how_ could you allow your school to be a part of this? First a Basilisk, then Dementors and now a contest that could have _killed_ someone? What on Earth made you think this was a good idea?! I almost didn’t let her come this year! If I hadn’t thought she would run away to get here, I _would_ have kept her at home! And I know _—_ I _know_ Jocelyn’s mom would have kept Jocelyn home if Leilani wasn’t going! Your job is to _teach_ kids! Not purposely put them in life-threatening situations! Yes, prepare them for life beyond school, but life beyond school rarely includes _dragons_!” He paced as he spoke, breathing only when absolutely necessary. “This was reckless, Headmaster, absolutely and unnecessarily _reckless._ Someone could have died! These kids look up to you; it is _your job_ to keep them safe. It is your _job_ to _teach them—_ not _endanger_ them!”

Dumbledore raised a hand when Aloiki next stopped to breathe, “I did not think the tournament was a good idea, but I did sign the agreement to host it here and I take full responsibility for that. You should know that I suspect your daughter tried to prevent a death in acting when she and Miss Montgomery did.”

Aloiki’s head shot towards Dumbledore at the word death. The color drained from his face and he stopped cold. “Who died?” he croaked. The tournament _had_ killed someone _._ “How?”

“Cedric Diggory. Both your daughter and Miss Montgomery knew him; he was Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain. I do not know exactly what has happened but as soon as your daughter and Miss Montgomery recover from their injuries, I will find out. Now, if you’d like to see your daughter, you can follow me to the Hospital Wing,” Dumbledore explained calmly.

Aloiki deflated a bit, his anger was fueled by worry, and knowing that his daughter was safe and alive did some to alleviate that. He followed Dumbledore to the Hospital Wing where he took his youngest’s hand, the only part of her that did not appear bruised or scratched, and held it, just held it. 

“She’ll be fine, I’ve relieved the pain and have set the break in her ribs. She fell on something very hard and very unforgiving. The bruises will have to heal naturally, she’ll be sore for quite some time, but she’ll be fine,” Madame Pomfrey said, her hand patting his shoulder. She’d shuffled Marcus and Fred out of the room a few minutes earlier, insisting they sleep in their own beds, though she suspected they’d be back.

“And Jo? How is she?” Aloiki asked. Jocelyn may not have been his daughter but as his daughter’s best friend, she was very much a part of his family and he was honor-bound to let her own mother know of any injuries attained in the defense of innocent life.

“Miss Montgomery will also be fine. Mostly, she suffered from blood loss and shock. I’ve given her some Dittany and Blood-Replenisher and the wound is healing nicely. It is too soon to tell if it will scar or not.”

“You’ll let me know if anything changes? Or when you get new information?”

“I will,” Dumbledore affirmed.

Aloiki sighed and stroked his daughter’s palm with his fingertips as he had done when she was small. “I have to get back to Jessica,” he said, reluctantly.

“My fireplace is yours, when you are ready,” Dumbledore told him.

“Thank you for looking after them, even if this tournament is a deeply terrible idea.”

“It will be my pleasure to see that it is never played again.”

Aloiki sighed again and kissed Leilani’s forehead. He patted her hand and placed it gently back on the bed, then he and Dumbledore walked out, leaving the two girls in the capable hands of the school nurse.


	90. The Third Task

June 24th, 1995

Sixth Year

\--

24 hours later, Jo woke up to Dumbledore staring at her and Leili. Jo gave a wave and a quiet hello by way of greeting and then sat up before standing up and crossing the three feet to Leili’s bed. She sat down on the floor and stared at Leili. Leili woke a minute later—being stared at while she slept was a sure fire way to wake her up—and grinned, she withdrew a hand from the blankets and poked Jo’s nose. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m ok. You?”

She took a deep breath, “I think so.” Then she noticed Dumbledore. “Oh, um, hello Professor,” she said as she sat up—slowly and with an uncomfortable amount of pain in her ribs. They were no longer broken, but the bruise ran deep; breathing hurt, moving hurt more.

“I need to know what happened during the third task, I’m afraid,” Dumbledore said, conjuring a bunch of chairs at the foot of the bed. “We’re simply waiting on a few more people and then you may begin.” 

Jo nodded and Leili gingerly scooted over on the bed to make room for her. Just as the girls were settled, Professor McGonagall arrived with Harry, along with a great black dog, Minister Fudge and Professor Snape. 

“Do you want to start?” Leili mumbled to Jo after everyone was seated and Dumbledore nodded at them to start.

“Heck no.”

“Guess I will.” Then, in a normal volume, “It all started because Jo didn’t trust Professor Not-Moody.”

“I had good reason not to! He was drinking Polyjuice out of that stupid flask.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we knew that in September. You just had a niggling little feeling when he walked into the Great Hall that something was wrong.”

Jo rolled her eyes but had to agree that Leili was right. “One night, about a month into the term, we stole—”

“Borrowed! It’s not like we kept it!” Leilani squawked indignantly.

“The flask,” Jo continued, poking Leili in the ribs as punishment for interrupting.

Leili hissed in a breath, which in turn made her ribs hurt worse and Jo immediately withdrew her hands. This was the first time she’d woken; she hadn’t realized Leili was hurt. 

“Sorry!” Jo said, Leili nodded and patted her hand, motioning her to go on as she tried to remember how to breathe.

“I brought a bit of the potion to Marcus Flint, who recognized it as Polyjuice. So the three of us kept an eye on Professor Not-Moody. We also kept an eye on Harry, because if anyone is going to go through the trouble of impersonating a teacher they’ve got to be trying to get close to Harry—sorry, kid,” Jo said. “We spent months like that, just watching and waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then the third task of the tournament came along…”

** FLASHBACK **

Leili watched the youngest champion through a pair of binoculars borrowed from her mom, her dad had offered to rent a pair of omnioculars for her but she’d declined saying all their different buttons and wheels and functions were distracting. 

“Ahh, that _thing_ ,” she muttered, wrinkling her nose in distaste as she watched a great, big, blast ended skrewt attack Harry, “is gonna eat him!”

Jo wasn’t watching as she murmured a response, “No, it’s not. Dumbledore wouldn’t let Harry get eaten. Now help me think!”

Leilani turned to look at her friend. Jo’s hands were clasped, as though in prayer, in front of her mouth, allowing her to chew nervously on her thumbnails. Normally Leilani would have been easily irritated by Jo’s tirelessly bouncing legs but now she just sighed and placed one hand comfortingly on the top of the shoulder closest to her.

“I am thinking, Jo,” she said softly, “I am.” Leilani placed her forehead against Jo’s shoulder, feeling stupid and restless. After a beat Leilani asked, “What’s the fastest way off school grounds?” She was trying to start over, sometimes that helped her think things through better.

“Broom?” Jo asked turning to look at Leilani instead of the seats in front of her. 

Leili shook her head, “Too obvious. Can’t Apparate.”

“Agreed.”

“Which leaves…”

Whatever Leili was about to say suddenly didn’t matter as realization dawned on Jo and she sat bolt upright in her seat, her next word a whisper, “ _Portkey_.”

“Crap!” Leilani cursed as Jo whipped out her wand and Summoned.

“ _Accio_ Cup!”

The cup flew out of reach of the two boys about to grasp a handle each and towards the girls. They tried to duck. The cup just narrowly clipped them; it was enough to send them spiraling through space until they landed with a hard thud in a graveyard.

The force of their landing sent the girls rolling away from each other, Leili behind one of the numerous gravestones and Jo out in the open. Spotting Jo, Wormtail forced her against a large headstone as he had planned to do to Harry and tied her securely to it before running, literal tail between his legs, to deliver the bad news to his master.

“M-M-Master… It’s not right,” he whined, afraid of what may be done to him for this deviation from the plan.

“What?” came the cold, high voice.

“It’s not the boy! Someone else came instead!” Wormtail whimpered. 

“Damn right I’m not the boy! Poor kid being forced to battle dragons, and giant ass Arachnids and blast ended skrewts! Not to mention nearly drowning in the Black Lake,” Jo yelled to cover any noise Leilani made as she worked her way over. She could easily hear them inside the hut, sound really carried in this place.

“She’s one of the ones who turned me over to Remus last year,” Wormtail said.

“I’ll punish you for this later Wormtail, but for now… it seems you’ve got your wish. We shall have to do with _out_ Harry Potter,” the voice hissed. 

Wormtail emerged holding Voldemort just as Leilani was almost close enough to do something without hurting Jo in the process. She ducked down to avoid being seen.

“Give me a chance and I’ll kick your hide all the way from here to Timbuktu!” she yelled. 

Voldemort hissed in aggravation, “Ssshe’ll do. Begin the ritual!”

“Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!” A bone rose from the grave Jo stood on and dropped into the cauldron. “Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed, you will revive your master!” Leili’s eyebrows pulled together as the corners of her mouth turned down when Wormtail cut off his own hand, letting it fall into the brewing potion.

“Gross,” she whispered to herself. “Eugh,” she shuddered.

“Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe,” Wormtail chanted taking the same knife he’d used on his hand to the inside of Jo’s elbow. 

“ _That_ is completely unsanitary! Get your _bloody_ knife _away_ from me!” Jo yelled. She wasn’t faking her disgust as Wormtail sliced open the vein in her elbow.

As Leilani crept towards Jo, they watched as Wormtail dropped something child-sized curled into a fetal position into the bubbling cauldron. This was Leili’s chance. She leapt over graves, dodged markers, quickly running to hide behind the headstone to which Jo was tied, and whispered “ _Incendio_ ” at the ropes.

“Are you ok?” Jo whispered to Leili.

“ _Me_? What about _you_? You’re the one with the gash in her arm, and tied to a headstone!” Leili hissed. 

The fire was eating through the ropes quickly, but not quickly enough. Leili instructed Jo to start pulling while she did the same. Voldemort emerged from the cauldron, skin skull white, excepting the grey veins that could be seen running under the skin of his bald head. Detachedly, Leilani thought he looked like an ugly marble statue.

“Can I kill it?” Jo asked.

“Not _now_ , Jo,” Leili answered, just a little exasperated.

“Your arm, Wormtail…” he said.

“Oh, thank you, Master, thank you.” Wormtail whimpered holding out the bleeding stub where his hand used to be, neither of them seemed to notice the foul smell of burning rope.

“The **_other_** arm, Wormtail.” 

Head hung and other arm offered, Voldemort pressed the dark mark branded there and as it burned black, hooded and masked men Apparated to the scene. Voldemort walked around the inside of the circle, chastising his followers for not trying to find him. 

Several of their number were missing, he said, one too cowardly to return, he’d pay and one who had left them forever, (“Or something to that effect, we were too busy trying to escape to pay proper attention,” Leili interjected.) he would die.

While Jo writhed under the top set of ropes trying to get them to break faster, Leilani pulled at the bottom set. The sudden split sent a ripping noise through the air followed by Leilani’s ‘oof’ as the bottom ropes gave out and knocked her flat on her butt. Jo had somehow managed to not land on her face when she fell forward after the top ropes gave out.

Both girls froze as everyone turned to stare at them. 

“Shit,” they swore before chaos suddenly broke out, with spells flying and the girls running for their lives. While the girls ran, they dodged spells while throwing their own. 

When an explosion went off under their feet, the girls were separated and injured by flying debris. Jo landed a few feet away on her forearms and knees while Leilani was thrown against a tombstone, bashing her hip into the edge while the sharp corner hit her square in the ribs.

“LEILI, GET TO THE CUP!” Jo shouted as Leilani stood and started towards her friend. After a very brief pause, Leilani changed course and ran for the cup, dully aware of a searing pain in the right side of her ribcage. 

Jo got up to follow when she was hit with a severing spell. A bleeding gash opened diagonally across her chest and knocked her back. Jo tried repeatedly to stand, failing miserably as she hemorrhaged. 

As she reached for the cup, Leilani turned, looking for Jo, she couldn’t leave without her. Instead of seeing her best friend running like her tail was on fire, she found her collapsed on the ground. “JO!” she called. 

Jo looked up, pushing herself to her knees in the grass, glancing from Leili to the Death Eater behind her. Jo was pressing her wand arm across her chest, trying to stem the flow of blood. 

Leilani couldn’t feel it, but lighting burst into sight across her skin. Strands of her hair stood on end. She stood frozen for a heartbeat, though it felt like minutes. 

As the Death Eater aimed their wand at Jo once more, Leili brought her own wand up and thought, but did not say, _‘Expulso’._

Behind Jo, the Death Eater exploded into a thousand tiny pieces and a fine pink mist. She didn’t have the time to process what had just happened, didn’t even have time to realize that the spell had been non-verbal, something she had trouble with.

Across the Graveyard, Voldemort pointed his wand at them but Leilani’s voice cut through his with a cry of her own,“ _Accio_ Jo!” 

Jo zipped through the air to Leilani who caught her, fell back, slammed her hand down on the cup and with that they were gone. Bright green spell-light missed them by nano seconds.

PRESENT DAY

“And then we were back at school. I don’t really remember what happened next, I woke up here,” Leili said, absentmindedly playing with her ponytail.

“Now, Dumbledore, see here, he can’t be back. He just _can’t_ be," Fudge interrupted, his hat in his hands, a hint of pleading in his distressed tone.

“You saw the Dark Mark yesterday, you’ve heard the truth,” Snape responded, trying to make him see the facts.

“I saw it happen, Minister!” Harry interjected, the girls blinked at him.

“You… you saw it? What do you _mean_ you _saw_ it?” Jo asked.

“After you summoned the Cup, my scar started to hurt and I saw Wormtail tell Voldemort that it had gone wrong, I saw him come out of the cauldron, and I saw you,” he looked at Jo, “standing on his dad’s grave. I saw it happen. Voldemort is back.”

The room was silent after that until Fudge spoke, “See here, children! You-Know-who returned? I mean really! I know you’ve had quite a shock but there is simply no need for you to make up such things!”

“ _We didn’t make it up_!” Jo cried in outrage.

“Ask Not-Moody, I’m sure he’ll tell you,” Leilani said, frowning. 

Fudge spluttered, “One can’t take the word of a lunatic seriously!” The large black dog beside Harry began to growl.

“Well, the Dementor that performed the kiss has robbed us of that opportunity in any case, hasn’t it?” McGonagall retorted. 

Fudge spluttered again. 

“You let a _dementor_ get at him?!” Jo screeched.

“I think it most interesting,” Dumbledore interceded, trying to calm everyone down a notch, “that these two young ladies made the connection that something was wrong, all because neither knew Professor Moody and Miss Montgomery didn’t trust him. I wonder if you’ve got a touch of the Sight in your blood, Miss Montgomery?”

“I wouldn’t know, Professor,” Jo said, addressing Dumbledore. “I’m Muggle-born, ’t’s why my mum isn’t here.”

“I see no evidence of it, Headmaster,” Snape said coolly. The last thing he needed was another Seer running around the school; it was bad enough that Dumbledore had hired Sybil Trelawney. It may have just been Montgomery’s mistrust of authority figures that had led to the eventual discovery of a traitor in their midst. Nevertheless, he’d have to keep an eye on Jo; she could be useful in the end. 

Madame Pomfrey stepped in, “I think we should leave these young ladies be, they’ve had a terrible ordeal, and I’m sure would like to see their visitors before they take their sleeping droughts.” 

Leili blinked, “Visitors?”

Dumbledore smiled before ushering everyone out, though the dog lingered. “There is one more thing, however.” Dumbledore’s shoulders drooped and his head hung slightly, “I am afraid that Mister Diggory was killed shortly after your return.”

“What?” Jo said, shocked. Leili’s hands flew to her mouth to stifle the gasp that escaped. “How?”

“Professor Not-Moody, as you called him, was in fact the presumed late son of the now late Bartimus Crouch. He was sent to Azkaban on charges of being a Death Eater and torturing Auror Longbottom and his wife Alice into insanity.”

“ _What_?” Jo said again. Leili gripped her hand tighter, poor Neville.

“His mother was dying and took his place in prison while he was smuggled home and given to the care of a house elf named Winky. His father thought he could control him, but he could not and his folly killed him. Barty ambushed Alastor Moody and assumed his place as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The blame for Cedric’s death lies with me, I sent Mister Diggory and Harry with him to get them out of harm’s way. Instead I sent them into it.” 

The dog tilted his head and whined sympathetically. 

“I’ll leave you to your visitors now,” he said as he turned and left the room. 

The dog lingered.

“Are you our new guard dog?” Jo asked; she was a dog fan.

He hopped up, right over the foot bar, sat between the girls and handed each a big paw, which they shook. He took his paws back, leaned forward and licked their cheeks. What happened next would normally have garnered applause, because the dog got down off the bed and transformed into a fairly young man, maybe mid-thirties. 

He wasn’t just any man though, oh no. This was _Sirius Black_.

Instead of applauding, Leili grabbed her wand off the bedside table and pointed it him. 

He just smiled and raised his hands obligingly, “You’re in no danger from me; you saved my Godson. Thank you.” With that, he morphed back into a dog and trotted out of the room after Harry.

“Was that just...? Did we just...? … _Godson?_ Holy crap.” Jo said.

“Yes it was, yes we did, _godson_ and, ‘holy crap’ is right…” Leili said, blinking at the space where Sirius had sat, ribs throbbing. 

She slowly put her wand back on the table and went to scrub the slime off her cheek with her sleeve. It was one thing when a dog licked you; it was something else when a wanted fugitive masquerading as a dog licked you.

“I knew that dog looked familiar!” Jo said, epiphany striking. He was the same dog from outside the Shrieking Shack, the one that had wrestled with a werewolf. 

Someone owed them an explanation, _big_ _time_. But explanations would have to wait for right at that moment, Fred and Marcus came through the hospital wing doors with Luna trailing behind, wearing her Specrespecs. Fred broke into a jog when he saw Leilani. He sat down on the bed next to her and wrapped her in a bracing hug. 

Leili gasped out “ _Ribsribsribs_!”

Fred recoiled. 

“For the love of everything could people stop hugging where it hurts?” She half-joked. “Jeez!”

“Where’s that?” Fred asked.

“Shoulders. Shoulders are safe.” 

Obligingly, he wrapped his arms gently around her shoulders, pressing his cheek to hers. “I was afraid I’d lost you,” he said into her ear. “Please, don’t do that again.”

“Tell Jo; she’s the one who did it.”

Fred huffed a surprised laugh before he let go.

“I heard my name,” Jo said.

“Just saying it was your idea.”

“Oh, yeah. In fairness, we _did_ duck.” 

Luna took a seat on the foot of the bed while each boy pulled up a chair on either side of the girls.

“So, what’d we miss?”

“You gave everyone a right scare,” Fred replied.

“I pummeled a Death Eater,” Marcus added.

“Leilani electrocuted that Death Eater, and Dumbledore,” Luna said

“I did _what_?” Leili asked in disbelief. 

“No way!” Jo grinned, “she zapped Dumbledore?” then to Leili, “You _zapped_ _Dumbledore_?”

“I don’t remember that!” she was mortified. “I remember being scared. I remember being in pain, and I remember… I remember not knowing who to trust… I remember hands, lots and lots of _hands_ ,” Leili shuddered. “But that’s it. Pretty much.” 

“That’s more th’n me, I remember the graveyard and then waking up here.”

“It’s hardly any wonder you don’t remember more, you’ve both got wrackspurts,” Luna said, her spectrespecs revealing more than the naked eye could see.

“Wrackspurts?” Marcus couldn’t help but ask.

“They float in your ears and make your brain go fuzzy. Can lead to memory loss, mass confusion, and occasional dizziness,” Luna explained.


	91. Swimming

June 26-27th, 1995

Sixth year

\---

After Dumbledore left, the five of them continued chatting amiably for a while until the matron produced sleeping draughts. Marcus and Luna left, while Fred lingered. 

Jo downed her vial in one gulp, eager to sleep away the lingering effects of her wounds but Leili refused hers.

“I recommend you take it, dear.”

“Can I stay up just a little while longer? I just…don’t want to sleep right now,” Leili said quietly. 

“Very well, I’ll leave it here for you,” Madame Pomfrey left the vial on the nightstand and turned to give Fred a look. He started to stand when Leilani reached for his fingers.

“Can… Can Fred stay? Please?” she pleaded.

Madame Pomfrey pursed her lips but reluctantly agreed. “Very well, _if_ you keep your voices down.”

“Thank you.”

After Madam Pomfrey retreated to her office, Fred sat and turned to Leilani, “Are you ok?”

She tilted her head side-to-side, reaching out to wrap a finger around his, “I don’t know. I just don’t want to sleep and I don’t want to be alone.” She withdrew her hand suddenly and looked away, “Did I presume? You don’t have to stay, if you don’t want. I’m sure your bed would be more comfortable than that chair.”

He took her hand again, “I’ll stay with you.”

She looked back at him, eyes wide and soft and full of gratitude, “Really?”

“Forever, if you want,” he confirmed.

They stayed up well into the night, talking. She was wide-awake but he fell asleep eventually. She picked up the potion and looked at it. She swirled it around and put it back down without drinking it. She stared at the walls for what felt like hours before she swung her feet out of bed and crept towards the door.

“Lei?” Fred murmured sleepily.

“Shh-shh-shh-shh,” she whispered, padding back and crouching by his side.

“Wadderyoudoin?” he jumbled.

Leili smiled, “Man, you’re cute when you’re asleep. I was sneaking out, d’you wanna come?”

“Sneaking out is my middle name. …Actually it’s Gideon, but don’t tell anybody,” he winked at her and got a quiet snicker in response.

“C’mon then,” she took his hand and gently pulled him out of the chair. They snuck past Madam Pomfrey’s office and scampered into the hall

“Lei, where are we going?”

“The same place I always go when I’m stressed.” That was the last she said of it until they came upon the prefect’s bath, “Swashbuckling.”

“This is where you come?”

“Well I can’t swim in the lake, silly,” she said as she pulled him inside. 

She turned on all the taps and waited. It filled in less than a minute and Fred stood there, mouth agape, staring at his girlfriend of less than a month as she stripped off her hospital pjs, leaving her in her bra and panties—both of which were half lace—and slipped into the pool-sized bath.

“Are you coming, or what?”

“Do you do this often?”

“Swim in my underwear? No, I usually use a swimsuit. Does it make you nervous?”

“I’m not sure _nervous_ is the right word.”

Leili’s lips twisted up wryly, “Uh-huh. Is this an ‘I-need-a-cold-shower’ moment or…?”

Fred’s mouth dropped open, the few times he’d interacted with her before they’d started dating, or been close enough to casually over-hear her, she had _not_ come across this way. “Blimey Lei, don’t take this the wrong way, I thought you were shy!”

She laughed, “Nu-uh. _Shy_ kinda went out the window, ohh, I’d say about six or seven months ago.” _With Oliver_ , were the words she didn’t need to add, “I mean: I wouldn’t want to walk out in the middle of the school like this but it’s not like I’m _naked_. As long as I don’t think too hard about things like this,” she dipped her chin to indicate her state of undress, “I’m good! But, if _you’re_ shy or uncomfortable, we can turn on the bubbles. Whaddya say? You joining me? I hate to swim alone.”

In a ‘why the hell not’ moment, Fred stripped down to his boxers and jumped in.

“Yaaaay,” she whooped, using her legs to tread water so she could clap.

“Why didn’t you take the sleeping draught?” he asked as they swam.

“I didn’t want to.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“I didn’t want to sleep.” She shrugged, “I don’t know what to say beyond that. I just didn’t want to sleep.” _I’m afraid of what I’ll see if I close my eyes._

“What _happened_ to you, yesterday?”

She popped her lips and started ticking off a rough summary of events on her fingers, “Saw Voldemort revived, it sucked; met Voldemort, that sucked _more_ ; ran away; broke my ribs;” she gestured briefly to the truly ugly bruise on her side turning black, blue and purple, “turned a Death Eater into a fine pink mist, almost got killed, and apparently electrocuted three teachers! Sucked, sucked, sucked, suckie-suckie, suck-sucked, _sucked._ ” 

They blinked at each other in stunned silence before she groaned, dropping her face into her hands, “I’m sorry, that was snippy.” She muttered, “I’m still trying to get Oliver’s voice out of my mouth; I _thought_ I’d been doing so well.”

Fred’s sudden grin was bright and cheerful and infectious, she soon found herself smiling back. “You’re doing _fine,_ ” he said before he took her hands and twirled her around in the water, stopping his feet just barely from slipping on the bottom. He laughed and she laughed with him.

They swam for what must have been hours, not talking much, just enjoying each other’s company in the echo-y room. They splished and splashed and Fred at one point dove under the water to shove his head between her knees and stand up.

“Woah!” she cried in surprise as her head rose six feet in the air, instinct had her crocheting her legs under his arms and squeezing her knees on his shoulders. His hands gripped her shins and hers dove down to press against his chest. Between the two of them, there was no way she could fall. Once she realized that, she sat up carefully, her arms spreading out in wings for balance. His contagious laugh reverberated through her legs and bubbled up out of her own throat as he spun.

Still laughing, she yelped as he—without warning— _dropped_ back underwater and tried to swim with her on his back as though she were half her size. She leaned back and released her legs from his shoulders, allowing her to somersault back, it stretched the bruise on her ribs uncomfortably but not to the point of abandoning swimming by his side.

When Leili finally tired, she pushed herself up to sit on the side of the bath-pool, breathing harder than usual. “Ow,” she winced as she took a few too-deep breaths, the bruise on her side sending spears of pain through her before tapering off to an ache. She tried not to flinch when Fred’s fingers came up to skirt the edge of the bruise.

He could feel the way the bruise was one big lump spreading over her ribs. He looked to see her face tilted to the ceiling, jaw clenched tightly. His fingers turned feather light on her skin and she stopped breathing.

“That. Tickles,” she ground out, dropping her chin to look at him as he pressed his hand flat on the floor. She inhaled carefully, “Thank you.” She wanted to scrub the itch his fingers had left behind but resisted; it would hurt.

She watched as Fred pushed up on his hands in front of her. They were so _close_. Face to face. Kissing distance. Once again she was struck by how pretty his eyes were. People talked about brown hair or brown eyes as though they were boring, but _his_ eyes, at least, were anything but.

Concern shimmered in those pretty brown eyes. She kinda wanted to kiss him… what should she do? She knew what would happen if he’d been Oliver, he’d have had his lips on hers. Pressing back, back, back until she was flat on the deck with him between her legs…and then _between her legs_. …But this _wasn’t_ Oliver, it was _Fred_ , and they’d only been dating a month. She wanted to do things differently this time.

She traced her fingertips over his face—he had such a nice face—before cupping his jaw and running her thumb along one freckled cheekbone, “Hi…” she breathed. A small, secret part of her thought she might be falling in love with him. She squashed it; it was too early for that kind of thinking.

Fred smiled, “Hi.”

“We should get back,” she whispered.

“We should,” he agreed.

Neither of them moved.

The next morning they were discovered back in the Hospital Wing, safe and sound, having made their way back eventually. Leili was curled up against Fred’s side, his head pillowed against her hair. Her sleeping potion was still corked in its vial on the table. Jo was dying for a camera.


	92. Triwizard Lecture Two

June 26th, 1995

Sixth Year

\--

Once the girls were out of the hospital wing, they joined Dumbledore in his office for the lecture of their lives for not coming to him at the start of all this. 

“…You should have informed me of your suspicions at the beginning. However, for your selfless acts, you will be each be given awards for special services to the school and you will each be given 100 points for what was surely stellar spell-work. The awards will be revealed along with the House Cup at the feast.”

“Well, we thought maybe you knew what was going on, at first.” Jo was silent as she tried to remember how many points Hufflepuff had and what the point boost would bring them up to. Once Jo had hold of a number she shoved it aside and shifted her attention back to Dumbledore.

“Can you maybe _not_ reveal the awards? We kinda don’t want anyone who doesn’t already know, to know, y’know?”

Curious, he asked, “Why? Most students would revel in the compliment.”

“We aren’t doing it for the points, or the recognition. We’re doing it because someone has to.”

“And that ‘someone’ has to be you?”

“Yes,” Jo replied. “It’s easier for us to keep the kid safe then it would be for any of the teachers to. We’ve already kept an eye on him for the past 4 years. It’s actually sort of fun, sometimes.” 

“It can be arranged. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

“Tell you? Not as yet.” Leili said.

“I do have a question to ask you, what’s up with Sirius Black being Harry’s Godfather? And the whole not-dead slash innocent thing.” 

“Oooh, Good question,” Leili told her.

“Ah. To answer your first question, Sirius Black was James Potter’s best friend; he was named Harry’s godfather when Harry was born. He was falsely accused of betraying James and Lily to Voldemort, in fact the betrayer was—”

“Peter Pettigrew,” Leili interrupted.

“Indeed. Peter faked his death and Sirius was sent to Azkaban for his murder and the murder of twelve Muggles. There was no trial.”

“Why wasn’t there a trial?”

“It was deemed unnecessary. Peter had accused Sirius of betraying James and Lily and blew up the street, leaving behind his finger and a handful of witnesses who repeated Peter’s claim and swore they saw Sirius cast ‘Confringo’. It didn’t help that Minister Fudge claimed when he arrived on scene Sirius was hysterical with laughter. 

“For twelve years, Sirius remained incarcerated but last summer, recognizing Peter’s animagus form in a newspaper clipping, he escaped and came here to carry out the death he was imprisoned for. You both saw him briefly last year. He was the ‘large black dog’ dragging Mr. Weasley under the Whomping Willow. Mr. Potter and Miss Granger turned time back to prevent the Dementor’s kiss. They set him and Buckbeak free and now it is time for dinner. I’ll see you at the Feast,” he said, dismissing them.

“By the way, I’m really, _really_ sorry I zapped you!” Leilani apologized. 

Dumbledore chuckled.

“Oh, oh, oh! Speaking of zapping people, can I see someone’s memory of what happened? I was kinda unconscious.” Jo asked excitedly. 

She’d heard rumors of something bordering on epic but since she’d been suffering from blood loss, she didn’t remember any of it and Leili had been surprisingly tightlipped about it, but whether that was because she didn't remember it and thus had nothing to say or because she remembered it and was mortified, Jo couldn’t say.

Leilani gave a pointed, “No,” before dragging her friend out of the office.

“Why not?” Jo whined as the door closed, Dumbledore chuckled as he heard Leilani’s reply.

“I zapped _Dumbledore_! It is **not** a crowning achievement!” She said, her voice rising to a slight shriek.

“Oh I dunno, I think it’s pretty cool.”

“What am I going to do with you?” Leilani groaned. Jo gave her best cheeky grin in response. It was at that point that Dumbledore lost the sound of their voices, leaving him to ruminate over sending an innocent man to Azkaban, not unlike Gellert Grindlewald had once done.

“Think of how useful it could be!”  
  
“Useful? How?

“Having everyone know that you can conjure and control lightning, they’ll be terrified! The attacks on Hufflepuffs should decrease.”

“Yeah, but I _can’t_ control it! I don’t even know how I did _it_!”

“You know that and _I_ know that but no-one else needs to know that!”

After a short silence Leilani spoke again, “It happened once before you know,” The girls rounded a corner, finding their seats for the feast early, so as to better ignore the impending stares and whispers. 

“What happened before?”

“The lightning on my skin, it happened once before. When Wood and I broke up, after he hit me, my skin was crawling with lightning. I’d kinda forgotten.”

Jo said nothing, simply taking Leili’s hand in her own. Once everyone was seated Dumbledore stood and began his speech. 

“There is much that I wish say to you all tonight, but I must first acknowledge the loss of a very fine person, who should be sitting here,” he gestured toward the Hufflepuffs, “enjoying our feast with us. I would like you all, please, to stand, and raise your glasses, to Cedric Diggory.” He paused, and his eyes fell upon the Hufflepuff table. Theirs had been the most subdued table before he had gotten to his feet, and theirs were still the saddest and palest faces in the Hall.

The benches scraped as everyone in the Hall stood, and raised their goblets, and echoed, in one loud, low, rumbling voice, “Cedric Diggory.” 

“Cedric was a fine boy who embodied many of the qualities that distinguish Hufflepuff house,” Dumbledore continued. “He was a good and loyal friend, a hard worker, he valued fair play. His death has affected you all, whether you knew him well or not at all.

“Any attempt to pretend that Cedric died as the result of an accident, or some sort of blunder of his own, is an insult to his memory. Now there are some who will not wish me to tell you this, but truth is, in my opinion, preferable to lies. I think that you have the right, therefore, to know exactly how he died. He died in the defense of a fellow champion. He died at the hand of a man who escaped Azkaban in order to return Voldemort to power.” He paused here to let the influx of whispers die down.

“Now, for the selfless acts and loyalty of three students this year, I award Hufflepuff 500 points, and thus…” with a clap and a wave the Hufflepuff banners as well as the Hogwarts mourning banners, both so rarely used, hung on the walls. 

Hufflepuff clapped, after a momentary stunned silence—they thought that surely the House cup would have been canceled this year—and Marcus Flint clapped quietly under the Slytherin table.

For the first time since 1985, Hufflepuff had won the house cup.


	93. Safety in Numbers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one was almost entirely written by RandomMuggle on FF.net, I don't know if you can see the difference in style but I sure can!

June 27th, 1995

Sixth Year

-

Maggie was a good girl. She never talked back to her professors, never cheated on a test and _never_ brought attention to herself After all, as a first year Hufflepuff, attracting attention is a death sentence. So far she had managed to stay off of the radar of all the bullies in Hogwarts. Unfortunately for Maggie, all that was going to change. Right. Now.

_Clatter_

“Filthy Mudblood! How dare you touch me! Do you know who I am!?” The 7th year Ravenclaw, Ian Salvia, yelled, gesturing angrily to his bag and its contents spilled across the floor.

Maggie, having heard horror stories about Salvia, started to stutter out apologies. Salvia was having none of it. He screamed, “ANSWER ME, BITCH!” and moved to strike the girl across the face. Before he could swing his arm, however, an icy voice froze the air.

“You hit her with that hand, Salvia and I swear to Circe I will Rip. It. Off.” Maggie had never heard a sweeter sound in her life. She turned her head to see the two champions of Hufflepuffs, Jo and Leilani. Jo was staring at Salvia with a look so cold Maggie could feel the chill from where she stood, but Leilani was smiling encouragingly at her.

“Come over here, Maggie.” Leilani said, holding out her hand. Maggie didn’t need to be told twice, she raced over. Salvia stepped forward with a snarl, as if to stop her.

Jo took a step forward as well, uncrossing her arms to let them hang by her sides in a subtle threat, “I am not in the mood for your _bullshit_ , Salvia!” 

Jo, Maggie had heard, had a propensity for ending duels with a fist to the face. Salvia must have known this as well, as he saw the threat for what it was and stopped.

Salvia realized he couldn’t win and gave Maggie, who was half hidden behind a protective Leilani, a hard look. “Your guard dogs won’t always be there to save you,” he spat. 

Maggie flinched, but Jo just gave a malicious grin as Leili said, “Don’t bet on it, Salvia.” He glared at Jo one more time before gathering his belongings and leaving.

Jo didn’t move for a moment and Maggie wondered what would happen now, when suddenly Jo gave a big sigh. She stuck her hands in her pockets and shook her head, muttering, “Good riddance,” as she turned to Maggie.

“Next time, Maggie, don’t travel the halls alone. Safety in numbers, yeah?” Leili said, smiling at the 12 year old. Maggie nodded and Jo picked up the girl’s bag from where it had fallen. She hadn’t even noticed she’d lost it. Jo started down the hall and Leilani followed, pulling Maggie with her.

“Um, where are we…?” Maggie started to ask.

“Going? To the common room, that _is_ where you were headed, right?” Jo glanced back over her shoulder at Maggie. “You didn’t think we’d let you walk alone after _that_ , did you?” she said, a smile appearing on lips that not 5 minutes ago had threatened to rip Salvia’s hand off.

Maggie shook her head mutely; suddenly glad for the two Hufflepuff protectors who roamed the halls. She gave a brief thought to what being a Hufflepuff would be like without them. Maggie shuddered and shook the notion away. It’s best not to entertain such morbid thoughts. 

As Jo and Leilani walked Maggie back to her dorm she heard Jo ask very quietly, venom dripping off every word, “Can I kill him?”

“…Maybe later.”


	94. Second Best

June 27th, 1995

\--

Marcus, Fred and George followed the girls to the carriages. Leili had Morgan perched on her shoulder and Jo’s Artemis circled over-head, the girls were chatting emphatically about something, Marcus couldn't quite hear them well enough to know what they were talking about. 

Marcus looked at Fred, leaning around George slightly to whisper, “I’m always going to be second best, aren’t I?”

Jo called for Spike with her customary whistle. The Monster Book of Monsters launched himself off the roof of a carriage and, using his cover as a pair of wings, flew after Artemis. 

“Spike!” Jo scolded. Spike gave a funny sort of noise before dropping into Jo’s arms. George grinned.

“I hate to break it to you, but I think that’s Spike,” Fred told him.

Marcus considered this. He didn't mind _—much_ —being second best to Leilani, the two girls had known each other for so long, he didn't want to come between them, didn't think he could come between them. He was pretty sure that if he had asked Jocelyn to chose between him and Leilani, she'd chose Leilani, just as Leilani had chosen Jocelyn over Oliver.

But to be ranked lower than a book—weirdly sentient, sure, but still a _book—_ that rankled.

He sighed inwardly, well, third-best was better than nothing, he supposed.


	95. The Scary One

Summer after 6th year

\--

Leilani sat alone in her bedroom. It was well past when she should have been asleep but instead every candle she could find lit the darkness. She sat, replaying the moment in the graveyard over and over and over again in her mind. A thousand times she saw herself cast the spell that killed a person. Knowing she had done it to save Jo’s life helped, a little. It made it self-defense (of a sort) and not outright murder. But it still felt like murder. 

Was she sorry she had done it? She wasn’t sure. She didn’t regret saving Jo’s life or her own, of course she didn't, but it had still been a person she had killed. 

She. Had. Killed. 

The words rang like a gong in her head. She loved her friend, but she had never thought she’d have to kill for her. She’d never thought she’d have to kill for anyone. She’d never thought she’d have to _kill_ , period. 

Leili looked at her hands, shaking in the flickering candlelight. She hadn’t touched her wand since the end of school. How could she, when she had used it to implode a man? It was tainted. _She_ was tainted. 

She had heard Jo make the joke that she was the one people needed to watch out for, that she, not Jo, was the scary one. Nobody had believed her. _Leili_ hadn’t even believed her. 

“ _Me_? _Scary_?” she thought. She was 5’2” and quiet, reserved with all but those she knew well. In contrast, Jo was six inches taller, glowered perfectly and had a reputation for punching people who disagreed with her. 

But as Leili sat and thought, she realized that she, not Jo, was the one who doled out head slaps to people who behaved like imbeciles. If they pissed her off, she hit them right upside the noggin with whatever book she happened to be carrying that day. 

Jo rarely, if ever, actually punched anyone. She just had the reputation for it because once or twice she’d thrown a punch that hadn’t actually collided with the person’s nose; the rumor mill took liberties. _Leili_ was the one who threatened to throttle people. _She_ was the one who had imploded a man. 

Did she regret what she did? She regretted that it had come to that but she did not regret that it had saved both her life and Jo’s. She glanced at her wand on her night table. She would not be afraid to use her wand or her magic. She would never use that spell again, though. 


	96. Another Two Inches

Summer before 7th year

\--

Fred was floo powdering over to Leilani’s house today. She’d chosen a specific time during which her parents would be out to avoid a meet-the-parents situation. They were going out to see a movie that she didn’t particularly care about and she had made a reservation at the local climbing gym, besides.

There was a crash and a moan down the hall. Leilani hurried to the fireplace to see Fred sprawled on the hearth. “Ooh, are you ok?”

“Bloody hell!”

“It’s tempermental, we hardly ever use it but I couldn’t think of another way to get you here. Devon is a two hour drive and neither one of us can apparate yet. Sorry,” She extended a hand and helped him upright, brushing soot and ash from his shoulders and sticky-uppy hair.

“It’s alright, I’ve been hit by bludgers harder,” he gave her a peck on the cheek and she grinned at him.

“Good. Let me just grab my stuff and then we’ll go. If you’re hungry, there’re snacks in the kitchen.”

Instead of going looking for the kitchen, he followed her. 

Morgan twisted between his ankles as he walked until he picked her up and gave her a scratch. Satisfied, she butted her head against his chest and got down, the bell around her neck announcing her departure.

On Leili’s bed was a dirty little dog, one who had obviously _been_ white but now was mostly dust-colored. As he came into the room behind her, the little dog rolled to her feet and started barking.

“Annie, that’s enough,” Leili scolded. 

Annie kept on barking. 

“Annie, if you don’t stop, I’m going to make you stop.”

The terrier went quiet for a moment but then picked right back up where she’d left off.

Leili made a noise that was half sigh, half exasperated groan, “Just… let her sniff your hand, that usually shuts her up. Be careful though, she _has_ been known to nip.”

Fred carefully extended a hand and Annie went to town sniffing his fingers. Eventually she lay back down on the bed and heaved a huff. 

Leili ruffled the fur between the dog’s ears, “She’s old and grumpy and doesn’t like new people much. I never actually use magic on her, though I threaten and am sorely tempted sometimes.” 

Fred walked around Leilani’s bed, giving the dog a respectful berth. He reached for the stuffed animal leaning against her pillow, “You sleep with a teddy bear?”

“I do,” she eyed him warily, god forbid he say anything unsavory about her bear. She’d had that bear since her 8th birthday.

He grinned, “You haven’t grown out of sleeping with a bear, that’s completely adorable.”

Leili gave him a quasi-dirty look as she reached for the purple, leopard print teddy bear. “It's mostly habit by now but I'll admit, she’s a comfort.” 

She didn’t mention that she hadn’t begun sleeping with the bear until last July. She also didn’t mention that the hadn’t slept for two weeks after the “unfortunate accident in the grave yard” as the therapist she’d spoken to had called it. The so-called “accident” had left her afraid to close her eyes and with constant nightmares when she finally did crash; making her cranky and unpleasant to be around—hence the shrink that she’d spoken with a grand total of two times before she’d sworn never to go back. 

She’d found the teddy bear during a routine closet clean out, tossed her on the bed and woken up curled into a ball around the bear the next afternoon—the first time she’d been nightmare-free in weeks.

“Did you name her?”

She laughed, “Of course I named her, I was eight!” Leili took a stuffed paw in her hand and gently tugged the teddy out of his hand. 

“What’s her name?”

“Cerberus,” she picked up her purse and backpack, “Ready?”

“You named your teddy bear after a three headed gurdian dog of hell?”

“Only technically. I was eight, I could barely pronounce ‘Cerberus’ so I called her something else.”

“What did you call her?”

To avoid answering—since the bear’s nickname, “Bear”, was a bit embarrassing—“Ready? About face.”

Fred laughed and spun on his heel, leading the way down the hall with Leilani following, flicking off lights and locking doors as they went. They piled into the car, “I’m impressed you can drive, most wizards our age can’t.”

“Just don’t ask me to navigate; I’ll navigate myself right off a cliff. I’m ok here in my neighborhood but if I tried to drive to your house, I’d for sure end up having to be rescued. I can’t tell my north from my south or my east from my west, unless it’s sunrise or sunset, in which case I have a pretty good idea of at least two cardinal directions.”

The first few minutes of the drive were spent in silence, but then he aksed, “Do you miss him?”

“Miss who?” she was driving, she didn’t have the brain power for riddles right now.

“Oliver.”

“No,” she said flatly, unequivacably. “If anything, I miss what I thought it was supposed to be. I am a hopeless romantic; what Oliver and I had? It wasn’t romantic, it was just hopeless. Most days it wasn’t even fun.”

He nodded and gave her hand a squeeze where it rested on the gearshift. She shot him an uncomplicated smile as he twined their fingers together. 

She had gotten a few blocks from the house when she realized she’d made a wrong turn. “Oops. Wrong way~” she singsonged as she stopped in the middle of the street and made a u-turn. He snorted, shaking his head a little, she grinned guilessly back.

The only time he had driven was technically more flying than driving and that had been to rescue Harry from Privet Drive, but he knew that if there had been anyone behind them, that manuever would have been dangerous. And quite probably ended in being rear-ended. 

When silence reigned again and she couldn’t stand the slight tinnitus in her ears, she started humming to herself. Eventually the mindless humming became actual lyrics, “…Stooole my cauldron…tooooads from my po-ond…crystal viii’ls of my mem’ries…then flew off like a vampire bat!”

“What’re you singing?”

She had to think about it, not being entierly aware of having been singing—at least out loud, “Um. Celestina Warbeck: You Stole my Cauldron.”

He raised an eyebrow, “You like Celestina Warbeck?”

“Lemme guess, you don’t?”

“No. My mum does though.”

“ _Cauldron_ is the only song I know well enough to sing solo. I’ve heard the others but I get _Cauldron_ and _Hot, Strong, Love_ , stuck in my head the most. I can stop singing, if you dislike her that much. I just needed something to fill the silence and, like so many other things in this car, the radio is broken.”

“What else is broken?”

She rapped her knuckles on her window, “You can’t roll down this window, passenger side back door doesn’t lock, you have to slam the back deck lid to get it to shut—my dad lives in constant fear of my accidentally shattering it—the a/c is anemic unless it’s on high and about half the lights in the dash have burnt out bulbs. It’s all too much hassle to fix for a car that’s ultimately not driven enough to be worth it.”

“Can you sing in your, ah, _borrowed_ accents?”

“Mm, only a little. A few words here or there.” She adopted an exaggerated southern twang she’d learned from too much TV, “Primarily, darlin’, if you get me a-singin’, I do so in my own voice, not someone else’s.”

He laughed and she made a _tock_ -ing noise with her tongue as she tipped the brim of her imaginary hat and winked exaggeratedly at him. “So how ’bout it? Celestina or no Celestina?”

“Why don’t you sing some more and I’ll let you know?”

She smiled, embarrassed but pleased, “Sure.” So she picked the song up from the beginning and he didn’t ask her to stop. Eventually she had to switch to some muggle songs though because she couldn’t remember the words—though her singing “Something-something Iiiii’ve for-gotten the words to this song!” to the tune of _Cauldron_ had made Fred laugh.

Half an hour later, they were at the climbing gym and she was teaching him how to belay so they could make the most of their downtime. She clipped herself to the auto-belay as he tied the double figure-eight. There was an employee overseeing the process who double checked the knot before it was clipped onto Leilani’s harness beside the autobelay.

“Ready?” Leili asked.

“Ready. Climb-on?” Fred said.

She’d run through the various phrases the gym used with him while she taught him how to tie the knot. She grinned and moved to the wall, “Climbing,” she volleyed back. “I’m gonna go up a couple feet and then fall, so catch me.”

She climbed, she “fell” and he caught. He lowered her to the floor and she went up again, this time for real. She got to the top, gently tapped the little bell that hung there and called down, “Take!”

“Take!” he repeated, then, “Lowering!” as he let the rope move through the carabiner bringing her slowly back down.

When both feet touched the floor, the supervising employee congratulated Fred on a well accomplished first belay and released them to climb without supervision or the auto belay safety rope. Leili and Fred traded places, she belayed while he climbed, she clipped herself into a saftey line on the floor so she wouldn’t be pulled into the air if Fred fell. 

They climbed like this for a while before moving over to what Leili affectionatly referred to as the “hard wall”. It was shorter than the ones they had previously climbed and it curved at the top so at one point the climber would most likely be hanging from their fingers and toes like a sloth. 

“I’ll go first? I’d say ‘show you how it’s done’ but I feel it’s only fair to warn you: I have no idea what I’m doing. I almost never finish this wall, but that’s what makes me come back: the challenge. Actually, I usually start here because, by now, my hands are pretty shot.”

“Go on, then: Climb on!” He gave her ponytail a playful swat as she turned.

She did about as well as she always did for the first, vertical half of the wall, but as usual, when she came to the spot where the wall became a cliff, the rock she wanted was _just_ out of her reach.

“Oh, what I wouldn’t _give_ to have just another _two inches_!” she complained as she stretched her arm out. Her fingers grazed the curved surface of the rock.

“Jump and reach!” Fred volleyed up to her. She was almost there!

She called back, “I’d like to see _you_ come up here and try it!” She jumped, reached and _missed_. She yelped as she entered a short free fall. After letting her swing a moment in the air he brought her down. 

“Go on then, _you try,_ ” she teased, unclipping herself and offering the rope in a trade.

She belayed as he climbed. He had only minor difficulties due to his height. As he approached the place where she had gotten stuck, he, casual as can be, reached out and wrapped his fingers around the rock she couldn’t reach. 

He shot a satisfied grin at her, “Victorious!”

“I should drop you for that!” She laughed. 

“Vicious!”

She laughed again.

“Besides, you like me too much to drop me.”

“You’re right, I do.”

The look of astonshiment he shot her from his sloth-like position made her eyes widen like a deer in the headlights as she realized what she’d said.

Positive she was blushing, she returned his attention to his feet. “Bring your right foot up to that orange rock by your knee… Yeah, like that. Now put all your weight on that foot and stand up. Up-up-up, now reach for that screaming face rock, hook your fingers right in the mouth. Perfect!” He gave the top of the wall a resounding _smack_ in lieu of ringing the bell.

“Take!”

“Taking!” 

When his feet touched down, he wrapped an arm around her lower back and pulled her as flush against him as he could with two harnesses and ropes in the way. He smirked at her and said, “Piece of cake. Easy as pie. A walk in the park.”

She grinned, gently whacking his shoulder with her fingers, “Oh, shut-up.” For a second, the way he was looking at her, she thought he might kiss her. 

But he didn’t.

At the end of the session, her fingers were red and raw and semi-permanently curved around an imaginary rock. His were worse. They were sprawled together on an un-occupied space of floor.

“If I’m dying, let me eat cake,” she moaned dramatically.

He chuckled breathlessly, “You’re not dying!” he said, rolling over so his arms held him supported above her. 

“Let me eat cake anyway.”

He poked her in the ribs.

She yelped and laughed breathlessly. His brown eyes lit up and he started poking and squeezing her sides, earning more breathless hysterics and a lot of wiggling. “Stop! Stopstopstop,” she laughed, catching his hand and twining her aching fingers through his.

For the second time that day, she thought he’d kiss her and for the second time, she wished he would. She was smiling so broadly her face hurt as he leaned in. Distantly she wondered if he could feel her heart thumping harder. He stoped scant inches away, she could count the freckles on his nose. Her breaths mingled with his as brown eyes stared into grey and then…

_ Beebeebeebeep Beebeebeebeep Beebeebeebeep _

The mood shattering around them like a broken window, she tore her eyes away from his to frown at her watch. She gasped as she registered the time, “Crud! We gotta go! We gotta go—gotta go, gotta go! C’mon, we gotta go!” She tapped his arm with her free arm.

“What’s the hurry?” Fred asked, rolling off and hurrying nonetheless. 

They were on their feet and heading off the floor as she explained, “My parents' movie is ending soon, we gotta get home before they do!”

Fred caught her wrist and forced her to stop, just for a second. “Do they not know we were doing this?”

“ _We_ , no. _Me_ , yes. They know where _I_ am, they don’t know you’re with me. I just don’t want to introduce you, yet!”

“You don’t want me to meet them?” he asked cautiously. 

“Not like this!”

“Like what?”

She floundered for the word, “ _Unannounced._ I haven’t told them about you, yet. Can we walk and talk?”

“Why not?” he said as he started walking.

“Why not, what?”

“Why haven’t you told them?”

“Because I don’t know how,” she admitted. “I avoid telling people things when I don’t know how to…tell them things.” She frowned at the sentence before deciding it didn’t matter. She took his hands and swung around to face him as they stopped next to her car. “Tell you what: if you wanna meet my parents, we’ll make a date of it. Sometime before school starts, I’ll introduce you. And you can introduce me to yours, whenever. Okay?”

His grin dazzled her, “Okay.”

“Okay.” 

“Okay.”

“Ok—Ok, we gotta stop saying ‘ok’!”

His grin widened as he leaned in and whispered, “Okay.”

She laughed, “Get in the car! _Honestly_.”

She couldn’t stop grinning all the way home.


	97. Ants

July 8th, 1995

Summer before Seventh Year

\--

Jo lay wide awake in her bed, reading by candlelight. She liked to read by candlelight, it kept her mom from coming in at all odd hours and demanding she turn her lights out, plus it was fun. For the third time in a page she brushed an ant away. She was too absorbed to care before, but now she was getting annoyed. _Where_ were all these ants _coming from_? Jo looked up, marking her page with a handy scrap of paper, and turned on her ceiling fan light. From her bed she looked around, _an_ ant here, _an_ ant there, _lots_ of ants there. Jo stood and walked over to her window, Aha! A crack!

Once again Jo looked around, she glanced past her clock reading 2 am, stopped on some painters tape and considered taping over the crack, but then she saw the candle on her nightstand. Perfect! Hot candle wax spread over the crack would work beautifully. She went to the table, picked up the candle and brought it to the window. She dipped her finger into the molten wax and sealed the crack. Then, for good measure, she dripped some of the wax onto the glass, using her fingers to guide it and spread it. Voila! No more ants!

She grinned to herself and said, “Jo: 1, Ants: nil.”


	98. Stars

August 10th, 1995

Seventh Year

\--

Leilani had invited Fred over to meet her parents for the first time and she was nervous. She’d never had a _boy_ over before—at least not like _this_. Her parents had given strict ground rules: doors open, no snogging, and he had to stay for dinner. Leili called Jo, who knew Fred was expected in an hour. 

“What’s up?” Jo’s voice crackled over the line.

“I’m in trouble. Deep, _deep_ trouble. _Help_?”

“What’s the matter?” Jo asked, instantly concerned.

“I don’t have a _thing_ to wear!” Jo laughed. 

“It’s not funny, Jo!” Leili chided, but she smiled all the same.

“Oh, yes it is! I’ve _seen_ your closet; you have some of the cutest things, ever. I _wish_ I could wear some of your dresses, and your _shoes_! Oh, my god, you have what, a dozen pairs of shoes?”

“I do _not_! I have, one, two, three…” She trailed off before adding sheepishly, “Oh wow, I really _do_ have a dozen pairs of shoes… how’d that happen?”

“Told ya!” Jo laughed.

“Some of those shoes are sneakers!” She pointed out defensively.

“Yeah-huh. So, dresses, remind me.”

“Well, there’s the orange and red dress I inherited from Kanani, the sparkly black dress that I stole from Kanani. There’s the dress with the white lace bodice and the royal blue skirt, or the purple and silver Chinese dress; I have that black dress with the ¾ sleeves, red sash and yellow skirt, and then of course I have the corset tops, which I can pair with jeans. …I have too many clothes."

Jo was silent for a moment as she tried to visualize Leili’s closet, “The red and orange dress, with the ruffled sleeves, that one’s cute.”

“It’s also way low cut,” Leili hesitated, holding it up. It was; it dipped all the way down to the top of her bra’s center gore. She wasn’t sure she was comfortable showing that much cleavage—at least, not in front of her parents.

“ _Exactly_!”

“ _Jo_!”

“What? I’m trying to help!” Jo grinned.

“ _No_ , you are being deliberately _un_ helpful.”

“So the orange dress is a no? How about that black and yellow one with the red sash?”

“Too fancy.”

Sensing this was going nowhere, Jo scrapped that idea, “Ok, ok, what did you tell Fred was the dress code?”

“Comfortable. I told him I wanted him to be wearing something comfortable when he met my parents because this is most certainly going to be awkward.”

“So follow your own advice, wear something comfortable. Cute, but comfy.”

“So jeans, yeah?”

“Yeah. But you need a top to go with, you can’t just greet him in your bra. Well, you _could_ and I’m sure _he’d_ enjoy it but I think your parents would have something of a problem with that.”

“I’m not even allowed to have my door closed with him in my room, you _bet_ my parents would have a problem with that!” Leili laughed.

“Let’s see, tops. You have t-shirts and tank tops and corset tops, there’s also that cute pink and black Chinese top.”

“You know, it’s scary that you have my closet this memorized. What about that blue floral corset over that black lace halter-top? Too much?” Leili asked, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder as she held up the pair in question.

“Mm, a bit. How about just the black halter? The only lace is the halter part, right?”

“Ok, that works.”

“Shoes?”

“Barefoot,” Leili shrugged.

“You’ll be short,” Jo warned.

“But comfy!” Leili reminded.

“Make-up?”

“You forget, all I have is Halloween makeup,” Leili grinned. She’d thrown away or given away all the makeup she’d bought while dating Oliver, she had also given away the velvet dress he’d insisted she buy. She didn’t want anything to do with that stuff, not with the memories they brought back.

“Right. You good now?”

“I’m good now. Thank you so, so much!”

“Call me tonight, after he leaves. Tell me how it went!”

“I will, bye!”

“Buh-bye! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“I won’t. Bye.” they hung up. Leili dressed and brushed her hair and her teeth; tried on almost every pair of shoes in her closet before deciding she’d been right, barefoot was better—she amended that slightly to stocking-ed as she pulled on a stripey pair of socks. She cleaned her room and tried to braid her hair before giving it up as a bad idea and just pulling it into a ponytail. 

One minute to Fred’s ETA, Leili hurried downstairs and parked herself on the arm of the couch, facing the hearth. And in one minute 30 seconds in a _whoosh!_ of green flames, Fred arrived. 

He brushed a bit of powder from his coat sleeve.

“Don’t forget to duck, then step!”

He did as instructed and felt her take his free hand as he exited the fireplace. 

“Are those for me?” she asked, pointing at the flowers bunched in his other hand.

“Your mom.”

“Aww. She’s gonna love ‘em. C’mon, let’s fix your face before you see them.” She guided him to the bathroom and wet a washcloth. She sat on the counter to be eyelevel with him and proceeded to wipe off the soot on his nose and forehead. There was a knock on the door. “Yeah?” she called.

“Hon, when is he supposed to get here? Oh. Hello,” her mom said, opening the door to find Fred’s hips between her youngest daughter’s knees. 

They were only just touching, and there was certainly nothing kinky happening, not with the foot of space between his body and the edge of the counter but it still looked compromising at first glance. They realized why she was staring. Leili rolled her eyes and scooted back until her calves hit the drawer.

“Uh-huh, you’d better scoot back, young lady,” her mom teased.

Leili stuck out her tongue. She turned back to Fred and lightly tapped his arm, pointing from the flowers to her mom. 

“These are for you,” he said, holding them out.

“Oh that’s sweet of you! …No dynamite in them, right?” Leilani had mentioned he was a trickster.

Fred grinned, “No, but they might bite.”

They were Wizarding Dogwoods. Very pretty pink and white flowers that were shaped like smoosh-faced dogs. Wizarding Dogwoods were prone to digging up your garden if you weren’t careful, since they would bury their puppy faces in the dirt, especially after rain. This served two purposes, one, it made them dirty, and two, it helped sow new seeds.

The evening passed smoothly after that, dinner was Cajun spiced chicken sandwiches, Fred was a perfect gentleman and her parents spared them any too embarrassing questions. 

Leili showed off her bedroom ceiling, enchanted to reflect the night sky, much like Hogwarts—except it didn’t change with the weather and if she wanted to see them in a different season, the illusion had to be readjusted, it didn’t do it automatically. He’d noticed it last time but hadn’t had the time to really look at it. She explained that she’d gotten the idea after her first year at school. She’d needed help with her summer Astronomy homework and her dad had enchanted the ceiling to better help her visualize. Together Leilani and Fred lay on their backs on the floor staring up at constellations they couldn’t normally see in the city. 

“Hey, Lei?” Fred asked, staring at her ceiling.

“Huh?”

“What’s with all the dream catchers?” There were several hanging in the corners of the room and others draped over her bedside table, her bookshelves, hanging on the doorknob. He hadn’t noticed them last time; he’d been too focused on her teddy bear.

“Oh, I make ’em.” She shrugged. “I’ve had nightmare trouble recently so I learned how to make dream catchers. They don’t stop them, but I think they help, a little. Plus they’re pretty fun to make.” 

She was nonchalant but Fred’s fingers twined around hers and he lifted their clasped hands to press a kiss to the back of hers. No offers of protection from imaginary or real demons, just silent comfort for which she was grateful. Still clasped, their hands fell back to the carpet, hidden from the door and any passersby. Her cheeks warmed and her heart seemed to swell and she knew right then and there that she was never going to let Fred go.


	99. Rude

Sept 1, 1995

7th year

\-- 

“We have had two changes in staffing this year,” Dumbledore continued his post-feast speech. “We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons; we are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

There was a round of polite but fairly unenthusiastic applause during which three Gryffindors exchanged slightly panicked looks; Dumbledore had not said for how long Grubbly-Plank would be teaching or where Hagrid had gone.

Dumbledore continued, “Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the—” 

_Hem hem_. The new professor coughed—if you could call _that_ a _cough._

Everything stopped as Dumbledore slowly turned to look at the ministry imposed teacher.

“Yes, Delores?” He intoned.

“I just want to thank you for that warm welcome!” Her voice was high pitched and breathy.

One sentence and half the populace already had a headache. Dumbledore sat down again and gave her his full and rapt attention. The other teachers gave her their attention too, though they were far more visibly shocked by this behavior. No one interrupted the Headmaster without it being life or death. 

“Thank you, Headmaster,” Professor Umbridge simpered, “for those kind words of welcome.” _Hem hem_ “Well, it _is_ lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!” She smiled pointily. “And to see such happy little faces looking back at me!”

Both Leili and Jo snorted, looking around, _no one_ looked happy to see her. Most were bored or shocked. Some were looking very grumpy, Leili could only assume it was due to being addressed like they were, well, _children_. But no one looked happy

“I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I’m sure we’ll be _very good_ friends! The Ministry of Magic has _always_ considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not _nurtured_ and _honed_ by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the Wizarding community must be passed down through the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching.”

“‘Rare skills, ancient wisdom, treasure trove,’ what a load of hooey,” Jo muttered to herself.

Professor Umbridge paused here and made a little bow to her fellow staff members, none of whom bowed back. 

Professor McGonagall’s dark eyebrows had contracted so far that Leili wondered if she was going to transfigure herself into a hawk and make a dive for Umbridge’s eyes. She satisfied herself with that fantasy for a minute, wishing—not for the first time—that she could draw better. 

“Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation...”

“Gods, she just doesn’t stop, does she?” Jo whispered in Leili’s ear, Leili repressed a snicker.

“...because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a _new_ era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited.”

Finally, _finally_ she sat down. The staff clapped. Sort of. 

Dumbledore stood and continued with his speech. Mercifully, he kept it short. 

“I don’t like her,” Jo said as they made their way to their common room.

“I’ll grant you, she _is_ annoying.” Leili stopped, a thought occurring to her, and put a hand on Jo’s arm, “Did you get a vibe from her?”

“No. I just don’t like her. I don’t _have_ to get a vibe about someone just to dislike them, y’know.”

“I know! I was just wondering, that’s all.”

“No, no vibage. Just good old fashioned dislike.”

Leili grinned as they kept walking.

“What? You saw how she interrupted Dumbledore, _rude._ ”


	100. Thorn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I wondered what happened to the miniature dragons after the tournament. We see one living inside a bubble-gum dispenser-like machine in the Alley in one of the movies but that's one of four, /if/ it belonged to one of the champions.

September 4th 1995  
Seventh Year  
-

The day before Herbology classes started again at Hogwarts, Jo and Leili were summoned to Professor Sprout's desk in the Hufflepuff common room. Silently, the girls were handed a small cloth bag that wiggled in Jo's hands.

"No one, save your dorm mates and Dumbledore can know you have her. Think of it as an early Graduation present," Professor Sprout said. "Also for your bravery in the cemetery last year."

Leili pulled on the drawstring top gently and guided the bag down to reveal a miniature dragon, all sleek black scales and orange spikes: the Hungarian Horntail. 

"What happened to the other little dragons?" she asked.

"The champions decide what they want to do with them. Miss Delacour gave hers to her little sister, Mr. Krum asked his go to Miss Granger as a memento to remember him by, Mr. and Mrs. Diggory gave Cedric's to the Weasley twins for their new joke shop, what _they're_ going to do with it, I am afraid to ask."

"So then..." Jo started.

"Harry asked his dragon be given to you two, as thanks."

"Looks like our dirty little secret cat is out of the bag on that one," Leili mused.

"Let's name her Spike," Jo said in all seriousness.

"You already have a Spike, Jocelyn…" Professor Sprout told her.

"How about Thorn instead?" Leili suggested as she ran her finger along the little dragon's belly.

Jo considered the name and then agreed, "Thorn it is."

When the girls went home after graduation this year, Thorn often made herself at home in the oven at Jo's mom's house. This had the only somewhat unintentional side-effect of scaring the daylights out of Jo's mother who would screech the first time, " _Why_ is there a tiny _dragon_ in my oven?!"

Jo would shrug, "She was cold."

"So you put her in the _oven_? Isn't that dangerous?"

"Why? She's a dragon."

Diana would splutter and Jo would shrug again; her mom didn't quite understand the quirks that came with being a witch in a muggle family. She'd tried to reheat a potion in the microwave once, thought her mom was going to have a heart attack. Of course Diana was _happy_ to have the little fire-breather on hand when the pilot lights in the stove went out, otherwise she treated the reptile as she would an untrained fire-breathing puppy: like she was going to get loose and set the curtains on fire. 


	101. Toadette

September 5th, 1995

Seventh Year

\--

The girls sat in the back of the class watching the new ‘professor’ with unveiled contempt. Jo’s eyes narrowed as the pink thing walked in front of a black board, a piece of chalk taking down every word so they wouldn’t miss a thing, because that would be so _terrible,_ she just wouldn’t be able to handle it if her students missed _a single word_. 

“Can we kill it?” Jo asked quietly.

“Remind me again how you feel about _dementors_?” Leili muttered back. Jo grunted and the girls returned to staring unhappily at the pink toad.

“How about we sic Thorn on her?” Jo said a few minutes later.

“Only if we set her loose in the office and let her set fire to all those _sweet_ little kitty plates and all the furniture.”“I’d be ok with that.”

That afternoon, during a brief free moment, the girls guided Thorn into the office through the window to let her wreak havoc for a few minutes. Thorn flew gaily around the room, knocking down some of the decorative kitten plates before landing on the Professor’s chair and giving it a good shredding. Then she discovered the lovely wooden table and she climbed up to the top and began to dishevel the papers on top and leave claw and scorch marks across its shiny surface. She also set one leg on fire, a slow smolder, before returning to her humans.

“Good dragon!” Leili whispered to her as they made their escape.


	102. Petition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand Jo and Marcus have their first fight.

Late September 1995

7th year

\---

In the Library, Marcus peeked over Jo’s shoulder as her quill scribbled. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Petition to get rid of Umbridge. Her royal rottenness.”

“A petition?”

“Yep. You know, that thing you have people sign when you want to change something.” She figured it was possible he didn't know what a petition was, she wasn't exactly sure if the Wizarding world had them.

“Are you expecting to get signatures?”

“You bet your ass I am.” 

“You expecting it to _work_?”

“I am, at the very least, expecting to attract a _lot_ of attention. Petitions are big and flashy and noisy and pretty hard to ignore. Luna thought it would gain more traction if each house signed individual petitions. Soon as I finish writing it I’ll give you one for Slytherin, just like we did with the house elves.”

Interest turned to disbelief, “That was a bunch of _elves._ You can _not_ expect me to waive this around the Slytherin common room.”

She turned to scowl at him, “And why not?”

Marcus huffed a short laugh, “Jocelyn, _no one will sign_ _it_. Any student who would want to, wouldn’t dare if any of their housemates were going to see. Umbridge has been the best thing to happen to Slytherins since Dumbledore was appointed headmaster. She makes us better.”

Jo gaped at this boy that she’d been happily dating for the last three years. She managed to force past the shock to splutter, “She makes you _bullies_. No, that’s not quite it, the bullies were bullies before, she just gives her permission and praise. She makes it _ok_ to be bullies. She makes it socially acceptable.”

“I resent that. Not all Slytherins are bullies!” He shot.

“You are absolutely right, some of you are _worse_!” She yelled back, “You are standing by and letting a corrupt woman come into our classrooms and take away our ability to feel safe, she refuses to let anyone tell the truth about Voldemort, she won’t teach us anything if it’s not out of a government-approved textbook that shouldn’t even be taught to _first years_!”

In a tone meant to soothe, to appease, he said, “She’ll only be here for a year, we can tough that out.”

She was not soothed. “But what kind of damage is she going to do in that year? And what if, at the end of the year, the ministry sees how _effective_ her methods of teaching are and decides she should stay? What next? More Ministry sent teachers? Within a single decade, the whole school would be run by Ministry puppets!”

Madam Pince gave them a dark look from her desk and hissed “SHHH!”

Marcus dropped his voice, “Aren’t you exaggerating, just a little?”

“No, I am not. Are you gonna help me or should I consider this the end of the Slytherpuff Alliance?”

Marcus blanched, “You would _never_ —”

“I would.”

Agast, Marcus demanded, “You would end the Alliance and pull Hufflepuff support? Do you know what that would _do_ to them? To both sides? Dozens of young Slytherins set adrift _without_ their buddies in a school that hates them just for being sorted into the house with the bad reputation! And just as many Hufflepuffs cut off from the ones who keep them from being bullied. I knew you could be vicious, Jocelyn, I never thought you could be cruel.”

Jo’s face flushed in anger, _how dare he call her cruel!_ “I’m not the one killing the Alliance, _Captain_ , you are. By refusing to do what’s right and help us get rid of the uber bitch! If Umbridge finds out about the Alliance, she’ll kill it and punish the ones working under it. It would be better to end it now than to let her find out and murder it.”

In a voice that shook ever so slightly, his shoulders hunched and his hands clenched on the chair in front of him, Marcus murmured, “The death of the Alliance hurts both of us.”

“You are absolutely right, but it hurts you a lot more than it hurts me.” This was only half a lie, if he killed the Slyther-Puff Alliance, she didn’t think she could go on loving him and that would hurt so much more than she could imagine.

A small voice cleared its throat. Jo and Marcus turned as one to glare at the intruder, “ _What_?” they snapped.

A second year Slytherin shrank back against their companion who whispered comfortingly, “Go on, it’s ok. She didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

Jo’s glare disappeared into a tight smile; she was trying to be less threatening, instead she looked like a shark about to dine on baby seal.

The young Slytherin blanched, “Um. I heard you arguing. Professor Umbridge is mean. She doesn’t like us. She’s not like Professor Moody was—he always seemed to be sorry when he was mean, even if it took him a while to realize he was _being_ mean. She’s not sorry. She doesn’t teach us anything. She should be replaced by someone who will. _I’d_ sign your petishinny… thingie.”

“Jordan,” Marcus started, “just because you’re willing to sign it doesn’t mean the other Slytherins will and if some of them find out that you sided with Hufflepuff over them, they’ll make life miserable.”

Jordan stomped one foot, fists clenched, “I’m not siding with Hufflepuff! I’m siding with my friends! I’m siding with the solution that will benefit the most people. Plus, no-one has to know. The Slytherins use invisible ink to sign and then when we turn in the list, we un-invisible the ink. That way, everyone’s safe. We can spread the word through the buddy system that kids can sign without fear of retribution.”

The buddy system paired first year Slytherins with second year Hufflepuffs and first year Hufflepuffs with seventh year Slytherins. This ensured that young Slytherins had someone about their own age who had already learned their way around the school to help them adjust. It also gave young Hufflepuffs a mentor who taught them about the Alliance and would happily step in when they needed help; their mentors prepared them for their second year as the buddy to a new student. The system seemed to work pretty well.

“You’re quite the little diplomat aren’t you Jordan?” Jo asked, pleased.

Jordan grinned at the impressed look on Jo’s face.

Jo turned back to Marcus, “It’s an elegant solution, Marcus. What do you say, will you let me give you a copy for Slytherin, or do I have to go behind your back?”

Marcus threw his hands in the air and sighed, “You’ll do it either way. Just don’t be surprised if they don’t sign.”

Jo handed out the three copies of the petition to the other houses and as promised, Marcus, Jordan and Jordan’s Puff Buddy started a whisper campaign through the Alliance, telling anyone who would listen about the plan to dump Umbridge. At the end of thirty days, the papers were collected, invisible ink was rendered visible and they were handed over to Deputy Headmistress McGonagall who promised and was trusted to deliver to Dumbledore who would tally the names, seal the papers in a scroll and send them via Fawkes to the ministry.

The Minister would receive the papers within the week, read them, dismiss them and have them filed away in some forgotten cabinet in some forgotten corner of some forgotten office.

Nothing would be done about Umbridge.


	103. The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter borrowed heavily from the book.

October 5th, 1995

Seventh Year

\--

Jo and Leili walked into the Hog’s Head pub behind Fred and George. The place was truly filthy, but other wise it was a nice little bar, smelled vaguely like goat, but that was ok, it gave the place character. They heard Harry’s shock at how many people turned up, “A couple of people? _A couple of people_!?”

“Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular,” Hermione replied quietly.

Fred approached the barman and said, “Could we get…” He turned and got a quick head count, “26 butterbeers, and a gillywater please?” The barman blinked at the sudden influx of teenagers in his bar before throwing the probably never washed cleaning rag to the counter and handing out the requested butterbeers and the lone water. 

“Alright cough it up, I don’t have enough gold for all of these.” One by one they stepped forward and left coins on the counter before turning expectantly towards Harry. When Hermione began to speak they turned to her but eyes still darted in Harry’s direction. 

“Well, um, you all know why we’re here. Harry, er well, _I_ had the idea that we need a real Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Someone who could teach us how to defend ourselves with spells, not textbook theory.”

“You want to pass your Defense Against O.W.L too, I bet,” one boy said. 

Hermione puffed up, “Of course I do, but that’s not all. I want to be properly trained, I want to know how to defend myself because, because Lord Voldemort is back.” The reaction was immediate and fairly dramatic. 

Cho’s friend spilled butterbeer down her front with a shriek, Neville disguised his yelp with a cough, a Ravenclaw boy twitched involuntarily and Padma Patil shuddered but all stared fixatedly at Harry. That was when the questions started. 

“Where’s the proof that you-know-who is back?” a blonde Hufflepuff quidditch player accused. 

Leili stood and tapped him lightly on the head, “Right here,” she said and he immediately looked cowed. Everyone recognized her from the catastrophe at the Triwizard maze the year before and looked around for Jo who was leaning back with her elbows on the bar. “You want further proof than our word against everyone else’s? Find me a Pensieve.” No one volunteered to find one so she returned to her barstool beside Jo.

“Is it true that you can produce a patronus? A _corporeal_ patronus?” Susan Bones, a redheaded Hufflepuff asked Harry partly out of curiosity and partly to change the subject.

“Yeah… You don’t know Madam Bones, do you?” Harry asked. The phrase she’d used stirred something in his memory.

“She’s my auntie! I’m Susan, she told me about your hearing. So it’s really true? You make a stag Patronus?” Susan smiled eagerly.

“Yes.”

“And you killed a basilisk with the sword in Dumbledore’s office? One of the portraits told me so,” Terry Boot said.

“Uh, yeah, I did, yeah.”

“And in our first year he saved the Philological Stone--“

“Philosopher’s,” Hermione corrected.

“Right, that, from You-Know-Who!” Neville finished proudly.

“And not to mention all the things he had to face in the Tournament last year, Getting past Dragons and merpeople and acromatulas and all sorts of things!” Cho exclaimed. A murmur of impressed agreement rippled through the crowd.

“Look, not to sound modest but, I had a lot of help with that stuff--”

“Not with the dragon you didn’t! That was some wicked flying!” a boy named Michael interrupted.

“Yeah, well—” Harry said before he was interrupted again.

“And no one helped you with those Dementors this past summer!” Susan pointed out.

“No; Ok, I did parts of it on my own but I—”

“You’re not trying to weasel out of this are you?” Zacharias Smith asked. 

Maybe it was the word ‘weasel’ that got under Ron’s skin. In any case he was now looking at Zacharias as though he would like nothing better than to thump him, “Here’s an idea, how about you shut your mouth?” 

“Well, we’ve all come here to learn from him and now he’s saying he can’t do any of it!”

“That’s not what he said,” Fred snarled and a small, pleased smile slipped onto Leili’s face.

“Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?” George inquired as he pulled a very long, very shiny, very lethal looking object from a Zonko’s bag.

“Or any part of your body, really, we’re not fussy where we stick this,” Fred threatened and Leili smothered a laugh and Jo grinned madly. Fred heard Leili laughing and shot her a grin over his shoulder.

“Moving on,” Hermione said hastily, hoping to prevent bloodshed, “The point is: are we agreed to take lessons from Harry?” A ripple of agreement moved through the group.

“We’ll need to make sure our meetings don’t clash with Quidditch practice times…” Angelina said.

“I’m sure we can find a night that suits everyone,” Hermione said impatiently.

“Personally, I don’t see why the ministry foisted such a useless teacher upon us at such a critical time! I mean, obviously they’re in denial about You-Know-Who being back, but to give us a teacher that teaches textbook theory and prevents us from learning defensive spells—”

“We think it’s because the Ministry thinks that Dumbledore could use us as his own private army. Umbridge thinks he could mobilize the student against the Ministry.” That revelation stunned most everybody, except for Luna who had a theory about Fudge having his own private army of Heliopaths. 

“Anyway, weren’t we trying to decide how often we should meet for these lessons?” Ginny interrupted. 

“Right, well, once a week sounds good,” Lee Jordan said. Angelina reminded them about Quidditch.

“The other thing is to decide where to meet,” Hermione said. The room fell quiet; Katie Bell suggested the library but Madame Pince would not be pleased about jinxes in her library. Dean suggested an empty classroom and Ron suggested going to Professor McGonagall. That idea was scratched. 

“Well, we’ll find someplace. In the mean time I think—” Hermione took a deep breath and steeled her resolve to say what she needed to. “I think we should write our names down so we know who was here. But if you put your name down, you’re agreeing to not tell Umbridge, or anyone, about this.”

Fred cheerfully reached for the paper and signed, passing it to George who signed before trying to pass it to Zacharias who was looking at it warily.

“Well, I’m sure Ernie will tell me when the meetings are, right, Ernie?” but Ernie was looking at the parchment and quill like it might bite him.

“Ernie! Do you really think I’ll just leave that list lying around?” Hermione snapped, Ernie hastily took the list and signed, passing it on; it went around the room Zacharias being the last to sign, just after Jo and Leili.

As the students filed out of the room Jo and Leili stayed, sipping their butterbeers until they were they only two left. “‘Find me a Pensieve,’ really?” The barman said, looking at Leili who had to repress a smile.

“Hell of a come-back,” Jo acknowledged, especially considering comebacks were not something Leilani was typically good at.

Leili grinned and placed her hand over her eyes, “Gods… I don’t even know how to _use_ a pensieve!” she muttered

“What were you going to do if they found one?” The barman asked, Leili gave a half shrug and Jo shook her head grinning.

“Hell of a comeback,” she repeated before taking a sip of her butterbeer.


	104. Inhospitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I don't do enough with the twins.

Mid-October, 1995

7th Year

\---

After the school wide petition failed with nary even a fizzle and pop, the twins of Gryffindor decided to take matters into their own hands. They had been looking for volunteers to test their newest Get-Out-of-Class-Free products: gushing Nosebleed Nougats, Fainting Fancies, Fever Fudges, Puking Pastilles, and more in development, but Hermione kept trying to thwart them. Instead, they decided to test it on everyone’s least favorite, ministry foisted teacher in the hopes that if they made life at the school as miserable as possible, she might run screaming from the castle, ne'er to be seen again. 

At first they pulled aside the houselves that took Umbridge her daily tea, mixing their skiving ingredients in with the milk. They did this for about a week before she stopped taking milk with her tea. Next, they pulled aside the elf that took up the tea and mixed their ingredients directly into the tea. This worked for about another week, before Umbridge insisted on separate tea leaves and water so the twins snuck down to the kitchen and found her special tea tin—covered in sickeningly cute kittens, of course—and dumped a vial of fever inducer inside. 

“Would you care to do the honors, George?”

“Don’t mind if I do, Freddie!” Geroge grinned, taking the tin and shaking it like a maraca, ensuring the powder was fully mixed. They put the tea back on the shelf and made their exit.

After each skive attack, Umbridge had to be put right by the nurse—making both parties unhappy. The fever that grew ever worse with each cuppa was the last straw, she took her tea and she took her china and she took the teapot and she locked them away behind warding so strong the twins couldn’t get in—it was, no doubt, her best bit of spell work.

“Well what now, George?”

“Beats me, Fred.”

Arms crossed, they stared at the cabinet.


	105. Halloween

Halloween 1995

Seventh Year

\--

Hufflepuffs were loyal to everyone in their house—even the ones who acted like prats—but Jo and Leili were two favorites and they would be graduating this year. So, in an effort to make this Halloween separate from every other Halloween, the students of Hufflepuff organized their very own, very special, very exclusive Halloween party. 

There would be costumes and pumpkins and Halloween themed games and candy, for there must always be candy at a Halloween party. Jo and Leili knew about this party because a. it was being thrown _for them_ and b. no one in their house could keep a secret _from_ _them_ for very long—they were just too nosey. So when Halloween night rolled around Jo and Leilani dressed in costumes to beat all the rest.

Jo came through the Room of Requirement’s door first, wearing a long, elegant black dress that Marcus would have been sure to enjoy, not that she thought he would be there or that she was trying to impress him, she just liked the dress; it had a sweetheart neckline and spider web sleeves snaking down her arms and for one night, no one could tell how fiercely she hated spiders. 

The skirt hugged her waist and hips and fell to the floor with a flare; there was a silver spider brooch pinned to the top of a slit that started at the top of her thigh, showing off long legs and spiky heels. Her hair was down and, for once, behaving, and she wore black lipstick to match black eye shadow. This was not what one would normally think of as a school-appropriate dress, but Jo knew she could get away with it. If she left the room she would just sew up the slit with a little magic and no teacher would be the wiser. It would be a shame to modify the dress like that though, however temporarily.

Leili came in shortly after her; her brown hair French braided between two life-like cat ears and tossed over one shoulder. She was wearing _the_ pinkest thing anyone had ever seen her wear, especially after she’d sworn off pink in her fourth year. The dress was pink with dark pink stripes; the bodice had a slight sweetheart neckline edged with a dark pink ruffle. Her striped sleeves ended at her elbows and the slightly flouncy skirt was edged in yet another ruffle of dark pink.

Leilani joined Jo and they stared in awe at the decorating job. There were black and orange streamers everywhere, a giant spider piñata in one corner, something Jo would later attack with much glee and fervor. 

Other decorations included requisitioned bats from the great hall, a tub of floating apples, paper towel ghosts, and mini pumpkin lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

“Oi, Freddie, look at Leilani,” George said across the room, keeping his voice casually neutral with a touch of teasing. 

Fred turned and nearly choked on his apple cider. She’d told him she was dressing as a cat, but somehow this was _not_ what he’d expected. He watched the pink striped ears perched in her hair as they twitched and swiveled towards sounds and he couldn’t stop staring at her. 

He did the only thing he could think to do, he walked over to her and said, “Hell of a costuming job you two pulled off!” He caught the matching tail loosely and grinned, “How’d you do the tail?” he asked her mischievously. 

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know!” Leili beamed at him, “I didn’t know you were going to be here!”

“I guess our ‘Puffs can keep a better secret than we thought.” Neither of them had a second thought as to what else their house mates might be hiding. 

Jo grinned as Luna skipped over— _she_ was dressed as a lion—grabbed Leili’s hand and dragged her over to a giant pumpkin fashioned out of orange balloons filled with confetti. 

Leili laughed as she took the offered darts. 

“Fred,” Jo said, stopping him from joining Leili just yet.

“Is this where you tell me if I hurt her, you’ll skin me alive?” He asked, both of them watching Leilani.

“If you hurt her, you’d better hope the _least_ I do is skin you alive.”

“If I hurt her, I deserve it,” he said seriously.

“Ok,” she said.

“Jocelyn.”

She turned to him, “What?”

“What’s her idea of the best date?”

“Why not ask her?”

“I want it to be a surprise.” 

She thought about it for a second, “You know the concept of boys buying girls drinks at the bar?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t like butterbeer and has sworn off actual alcohol.”

“Same idea, but at a bookstore, and then take her out for chocolate malted—don’t forget the whipped cream and sprinkles. After the malted, or before, it doesn’t really matter, take her out dancing— _proper_ dancing.”

“She… doesn’t dance…”

Jo’s lips quirked into a Mona-Lisa smile, “Doesn’t she?” before wandering over to the spider piñata. 

Fred moved to stand behind Leilani, watching as she took aim and threw the dart, miraculously hitting two balloons with one dart. 

He laughed as she whooped and gave a gleeful bounce. She gloated to herself as she turned to look at him. He grinned at her before placing his palm over her cheek, his other hand playing with the tail that curled around his wrist. He began to close the distance between them.

She didn’t wait for him to finish this time. She fisted one hand in his shirt, rose up on her toes and pressed her lips against his. Their first kiss! Finally! It quite literally made her toes curl in her shoes. His hand cupped the base of her skull and gently adjusted their positioning to allow for better kissage.

At the piñata, Jo was blindfolded by a young Hufflepuff, and turned in a circle three times. Someone took her hand and pressed her beater’s bat into it. She took the bat and attacked the spider piñata with all the enthusiasm of someone crushing a spider with a shoe, only on a much larger scale. 

Being blindfolded, she didn’t see Marcus sneak in.

Marcus lurked nearby as Jo sent the piñata flying away, while still swinging the bat around trying to re-locate it. Marcus tried very hard not to laugh at the sight of a beater flinging a bat around so fruitlessly. Sneaking closer, he ducked as she narrowly missed him.

“Nice outfit,” he whispered before catching her face between his hands and kissing her. When he pulled away, the bat came down and clocked him—not hard—on the top of the head. “What was that for?” he whispered.

“I warned you. At the Yule ball last year, I warned you,” she informed him, pulling off the blindfold.

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not,” Marcus said, kissing her again.

“Shut-up,” Jo smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck as _she_ kissed _him_.


	106. Pigtails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fred and Leili have their first fight.

November

7th year

\--

“I need to talk to you,” Fred said in Leilani’s ear as he finally caught up with her.

She plastered a docile smile on her face and said, “Sure.”

He took her hand and pulled her out of the crowd and into a secluded part of the courtyard.

“What’s up?” she chirped. Too cheerful. Falsely blasé. She’d perfected that tone with Oliver.

“Please don’t smile at me like that. We need to talk.” He hated the smile plastered on her face, he’d seen her give it to Wood a million times.

Her heart began to pound; she couldn’t look him in the face. She hated that phrase; it always made her anxious. “Ok, about what?”

“You. Me. Us. Please stop smiling like that.” The smile emptied out her eyes, it freaked him out.

“What about you _slash_ me _slash_ us?” she asked guardedly, dropping the smile.

“You’re hiding things from me. You’re avoiding me, it seems like every time I see you, you’re on your way to somewhere else and you don’t want me with you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something.”

“I’m telling you, it’s no big deal!”

“If it’s no big deal, then why won’t you tell me?!”

“Please, I don’t want to fight about this!” She begged. They were fighting. She and Fred were fighting; she couldn’t believe it. She wanted to stop. She tried to walk away.

He took her hand and made her stay. “We need to have this out in the air between us! Need to have it _resolve_ ; we can’t go on like this, day after day!”

She just wanted it to go away. It was worse than fighting with Oliver.

“…Did we go too fast? Should I not have kissed you on Halloween?”

Heat rose in her cheeks, anger or embarrassment, she couldn’t tell, “In case you’ve forgotten, _I_ kissed _you_ first!”

“Then _why_ , Leilani?”

“Am I not allowed to have _some_ secrets? I can’t possibly tell you everything about me; there are things about me that I wouldn’t even know to tell!” she cried, confused, frustrated and horribly dismayed. There were also things she would _never_ tell; things between her and Oliver that were too private to consider telling. “I don’t want you thinking you can control me, as Oliver tried to. I thought you were different than that, _better_ than that.” 

He blanched, “That’s not what I meant,” he said quietly.

“Then what, Fred?” Fighting with him _hurt_ , fathoms of agony went lancing through her chest, her stomach, her head. It stung the back of her throat and made her vision swim.

“I just—there’s something you’re not telling me. Please, just open up to me!” he pleaded.

She sighed and said the first thing that came to mind, “I was just trying to give you some space! I don’t want us living in each other’s pockets!”

“Maybe I like your pocket! Do I embarrass you?”

“No!”

“Why is it that every time I see you lately, you’re stalking Harry?” his hand flew into the air indicating the boy who wasn’t actually standing there. 

Leili _flinched_.

Eyes wide, they stopped, frozen in place. He hadn’t been about to hit her, he’d just been gesturing. Leilani sat down hard on a bench behind them, burying her face in her hands, mortified. 

After a second, Fred sat down beside her.

Leili leaned into his side and he wrapped his arms around her. 

“I _hate_ fighting with you. Let’s never do it again, ok?” her voice was small and a bit lost, like she couldn’t figure out how she got into this mess.

“Never,” Fred promised, kissing her hair. “Who hit you?” He was gentle with the question.

“Three guesses and the first two don’t count,” she snarked.

He didn’t need the first two guesses anyway; he’d known the answer before he’d asked. “Oliver.”

“Ding-ding-ding! Congratulations! You’ve won!”

“What’d I win?”

“Me, in all my messed up glory.”

“Where did he hit you?” again, the question was gentle.

“Cheek.”

Fred leaned in and pressed his lips to the cheek nearest him, “This one?” he whispered against it.

Leilani smiled suddenly, “The other one,” she said, turning her face towards Fred.

He smiled back and kissed her other cheek and then the tip of her nose. He leaned his forehead against hers, nose tips touching. “I like your pockets,” he said again, gentler this time, no longer shouting.

“And I like yours.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“ _That_ ’s the problem.” One of them anyway, another of course, was Harry.

“I don’t follow. I thought you liked me,” he was hiding the hurt the thought brought, because he _really_ liked her.

She looked to the cloudless blue sky, like maybe the answer was up there somewhere and sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I _really_ don’t,” she scoffed. “The last time I tried this whole relationship thing was with Oliver and we both know how _that_ ended. It’s not _like_ that with you and I’m just… just trying to keep it that way. I was serious when I said I was trying to keep your space, trying to keep us from living in each other’s pockets. Oliver would practically cling to me—like a leech—and make it obvious that I was there to suit _his_ wants and _his_ needs, on _his_ timetable, in _his_ choice of location—which, by the way, was more often _in_ public than not. He didn’t like it when I didn’t just succumb to his every waking whim and when I said ‘no’—to anything—he had a tendency to… behave badly.” She hoped he understood the connotation because this was about as close as she planned to come to explaining the things that happened with Oliver when no-one was looking. “He behaved badly and I defended him or I didn’t say anything when I really should have or I justified it or I took the blame when he did.”

“Sometimes violently?”

She sucked her teeth and let that be her answer. “I didn’t mean to tell you this.”

“…Why not?”

“I didn’t mean to tell _anybody_ this,” she chuckled drily and changed the subject. “I meant what I said when we went climbing: I like you. I like you so much that I don’t know what to _do_ with it. I like you so much I feel it down to the ends of my _hair_! And I tell ya, I didn’t know that was possible.”

He wasn’t quite understanding her, though it thrilled him to know she liked him as much as he liked her.

She sighed, “I’m not explaining this very well. …I don’t want you to get tired of me, that was the main point.” 

Ah. So that’s what she was afraid of. He cupped her chin and turned her face so she was looking more directly at him, “I’m not Wood. I would rather jump in front of the Whomping Willow than ever hurt you. I’ve had some inkling of liking you since we were twelve and you were still wearing pigtails. I think you’re sweet and funny and quirky. I think you’re pretty and talented and could probably kick my ass if you tried. _I’m never going to get tired of you._ ”

She laughed, “ _Pigtails_? Really?” she couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d worn her hair in pigtails. It was too long and heavy to do it now, unless they were braids and she could never get those even.

“I call you pretty and you focus on the pigtails—figures.” He ran his long fingered, callused Beater’s hands through the mass of hair in question, snagging on knots and tangles—somehow her hair was always tangled. His heart fluttered as she sighed and closed her eyes in bliss, tipping her head more into his palms. “Really. It was an Easter snow, you had just come back from Spring Break and you were having a snowball fight with Jo. One of your snowballs missed, it hit me instead. I’d seen you around before, but that was the first time I really noticed you. You waved, called ‘Sorry!’ and then shrieked like a demon when Jo magicked a snowman to drop on your head.” 

Leili laughed, “I don't even remember that.”

“That’s ok. Now, will you tell me what it is you’ve been hiding? Is it why you and Jo have been stalking my Seeker?”

“Hiding? Oh boy, that’s a list… In regards to Harry, he just gets into _so_ _much_ trouble, being the Chosen One _slash_ Boy Who Lived. Jo and I have followed him around for the last five years trying to keep him from getting himself killed. This year, he’s been acting funny.”

Fred explained what he knew of Harry’s situation, “He’s been having nightmares, about Voldemort, Cedric, his godfather; he showed up for Quidditch practice so tired one day he could barely stay on his broom. George and I made him tell us what was wrong.” 

Leili nodded, “There’s one other thing,” Ideally, she’d talk to Jo before doing this, being as it was half her secret too, but if it meant the two of them never have this fight again… She just wouldn’t mention Jo’s half. She stood up, “Keep your hands here; don’t move.” She positioned his hands in front of him, rotating them so the tips of his fingers were touching. “And whatever you do, please don’t freak out.” 

She locked eyes with him, took a deep, steadying breath and focused. And then she shrank. She perched gently on his fingers, folding her wings.

“You’re an animagus?”

“Yep!”

Two synapses clicked in his head and he smiled, “You little rule breaker, you! _That’s_ how you got up in the Quidditch ring. You _flew_ ,” he laughed. 

She flapped back a few feet, giving herself room to shift back.

Then, frowning, he asked, “You can tell me anything, you know that, right?”

She smiled gently and sat beside him, “There are things that I _can’t_ tell you, at least… not directly.”

“Like what?”

“Like this,” she gestured to her cheek, “when I flinched. That’s something deeply embarrassing and personal and not a thing I’d ever be able to just _mention._ I’ve got a few things like that, such as his poor behavior.” 

“Yes, I noticed you came shy of actually telling me what his behavior was.”

“If it makes you feel better, the same things I’m keeping from you, I’m keeping from Jo—Not just Jo, everyone: my parents, my sister; everyone. I’m sorry, this can’t make much sense,” she chuckled, a small and self-deprecating sound.

“Don’t be sorry.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, “You don’t have to be embarrassed, either. …You ever seen that smile? The one you used to give Wood?”

“No. Never had the opportunity.”

“It’s a little like a side-effect of our Day-Dream charm, you get this look like all the thoughts have eddied out of your head.”

She winced, “Ooh, sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry for that, either.”

“Sorr—,” She cut herself off before she could finish the word. “Old habits die hard.”

He pressed his lips to her temple, breathing in the cherry and lavender scent of her hair. There were wild cherry trees and lavender bushes on the hills near the Burrow, his mom made wild cherry pies in the spring.

“I love you, Lei,” he murmured.


	107. Real

December 1995

Seventh Year

\--

Leili sat up with a startled gasp, promptly collided with Jo’s forehead and then fell back against her pillows. “Ow,” she groaned.

“Are you ok?” Jo asked

“Fine, just a little sore. It probably won't even bruise. Why’re you over here?”

“You were thrashing in your sleep. I was trying to wake you. What was it about?”

“What was what about?” she asked, purposefully obtuse.

Jo smacked Leili’s arm. “The nightmare,” she said, an expectant eyebrow raised.

“Oh. Nothing.” Jo smacked her again. “It was just a nightmare!”

“About?”

Leili huffed a sigh and mumbled, “The graveyard.”

“And why don’t you want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t want you to worry.”

“Bah. Scoot over,” Jo said as she sat down and then lay down beside Leili, her head propped up on her hand. “Lie down and tell me anyway.” Leili flopped back down and sighed again. “Quit stalling. You’ll feel better if you talk to me; you know I’m right.”

“We were back in that stupid graveyard. We were back in that stupid graveyard where I _killed_ somebody. I _murdered_ somebody, Jo! _ME_! I didn’t think I would ever do that that, I didn’t think I ever _could_ do that! You were hurt and I all I could think was that I couldn’t let it happen and with a spell and a _flick_ _of my wand_ I killed a guy. I. _Killed._ A guy. It shouldn’t be that easy... Gods, _why is it that easy_?” Leili choked and sniffed hard. 

She let out a stuttering breath and said, “In the dream, I couldn't get to the cup and you were bleeding out. You were dying and he was _laughing_ as _I_ … as his... _crony_ blew up. He was _laughing_ and I couldn't do anything. I had to watch as he killed you, Jo. He cast the curse and you were dead. And I had to watch him do it. And then it was me he was killing and we were both dead.”

“That’s it?” Jo asked softly after a moment, not meaning to belittle the trauma, just to ask if that was, well, _it_.

Leili let out a wet chuckle, “Well it was more detailed, obviously, but yeah pretty much. Gods, it just felt so _real_ …” 

Jo took her hand and gave it a hard squeeze, just enough to be both reassuring and slightly uncomfortable. She lifted their hands and wiggled them in front of Leili, “Real,” she said.

Leili grinned, “Real,” she repeated, giving Jo’s hand a squeeze back. They fell asleep like that, holding each other’s hand. Leili didn’t have another nightmare that night. Their dorm mates found them still asleep together in the morning and not for the first time. It was well known that the girls were very close, but the rumor mill just took that as an opportunity and even Hufflepuffs weren’t immune to the rumor mill. 

There would be teasing tonight!


	108. Oops, I did it again...

Late December, 1996  
Just before Winter break  
7th Year  
-

_"LEILI, GET TO THE CUP!"_

_Leili's heart pounded as she raced not for the cup but for Jo who lay bleeding on the ground._

_"LEILANI! NO!"_

_Leili's feet left the ground as she dove for Jo, shielding her friend from more severing spells. She felt her back split open as she took them instead._

_The two girls curled around each other, chanting shield charm incantations, their voices overlapping. But a shield charm will not stop the killing curse._

_"AVADAAAAAA..."_

"Hey..." someone whispered in her ear. " _Hey_!" they whispered louder. "Wake up! Hey— _Ouch_!"

"HEMHEM," a prissy voice said, clearing its throat.

"No… nonono...!" Leili murmured, still asleep.

_SLAM!_

Leili bolted into startled wakefulness, drawing her wand out of her sleeve and casting _Protego_ on frightened instinct. The room was pin-drop silent, no one snickered or tittered or even breathed as Leili's brain caught up with what was happening. Lightning once again twined around her, Jo was busy shaking out her hand—she must have accidentally shocked her—and a pile of books lay scattered on the floor. She turned to look at Umbridge whose face was turning more purple by the second and she understood what had happened: she'd fallen asleep, had a nightmare, Jo had tried to wake her before Umbridge noticed, and Umbridge had woken her by dropping a pile of books on the floor.

"Oops," she said.

With a flick of Umbridge's wand, Leili's bubble disintegrated. Umbridge reached through to grab Leili's wrist, intent on hauling her down to the headmaster's office.

"Nononodon't—!" Leili cried, shrinking away from the advancing hand. 

As Umbridge's hand clasped around Leili's wrist, a loud _SNAP_ and the smell of ozone filled the air. Umbridge was the one to recoil now as Leili cringed. “… _touch,_ ” she finished lamely.

Someone snickered now.

Umbridge spun around looking for the laughing offender but whoever it was hid it well and she did not find them.

"TWENTY POINTS FROM HUFFLEPUFF!" She screeched.

The room burst into cries of protest. "Oh no, Professor, please, it was an accident! I swear!" Leili said.

"FIVE POINTS FOR TALKING BACK!"

Leili's mouth shut with a click of her teeth. She'd just lost her house 25 points in ten seconds. She was going to be unpopular with them for a while.

"AND GO TO THE HEADMASTER'S OFFICE!"

Leili's face flushed and she clenched her jaws so hard her teeth ached. She gathered up her things and with her back straight and her chin up she walked out of the room.

_Knockknock_

"Enter!" Dumbledore called cheerfully. Leili stepped inside. "Why Miss Akina, what a surprise! What brings you to my office this time of day? Shouldn't you be in Defense against the Dark Arts now?"

Leili stepped up to the desk, "I'm not even going to _ask_ how you know that, sir. Professor Umbridge kicked me out of class."

"Oh? What on earth for?"

"I fell asleep in class. And then...maybekindaelectrocutedher...a little."

"Lightning again?" he asked archly, eyes twinkling.

"I have an over-reactive defense mechanism," she said miserably as she dropped into a chair. "I _swear_ I didn't mean to."

"Fall asleep or electrocute Professor Umbridge?"

"Either. Both. I just... I've been having trouble sleeping this year. Between the nightmares and studying for my NEWTS, I'm just really tired." That probably was what led to her taking a nap in the middle of class. It had nothing to do with the fact that Umbridge's classes were boring as sin. Nothing at all... except that maybe if the classes were more stimulating then perhaps she could overcome the tiredness that dogged at the edges of her mind and wouldn't have fallen asleep in the first place.

"Sleeping potion?"

Leili shook her head, "They make me groggy and then I can't work and then my teachers get mad at me _more,_ " she sighed, leaning her head against the back of the chair. "I suspect Professor Umbridge will be here to yell at me in front of you as soon as she's done with class, sir."

"Yes, I expect so."

"She took 25 points from me. I suspect ten were for falling asleep and ten were for zapping her—though it could be because I used magic in class when she's basically outlawed it."

"Did you attack her, Miss Akina?"

"Only if you count pointlessly defending myself against a nightmare killing curse with a shield charm and electrocuting her on accident."

The door slammed open and Leili shot to her feet, once again going for her wand. Dumbledore's hand in her peripheral vision stopped her from drawing it. She realized what she had almost done as Umbridge came stomping up the dais. She really _was_ overtired. She collapsed back into the chair in shame and embarrassment.

"Professor Dumbledore, this student attacked me! In my own classroom! She sows the seeds of dissent amongst my students!" Umbridge turned suddenly to Leili, "Well? Stand up girl, or did no one teach you to respect your betters?"

Frowning, Leili got to her feet, pulling herself to her full height. While not very tall, she was still a solid two-three inches taller than Umbridge.

"Miss Akina informed me of what transpired and I have selected a suitable punishment for her. She is to take six weeks of detention on weekends and Hogsmeade days in the Hospital wing with Madam Pomfrey who will keep an eye on her and report back to me. You may go Miss Akina, detention starts this Saturday at 8am."

Leili turned to him and nodded, "Yes, Professor." Leili left before the fuming Umbridge could explode with her still in range. Little did she know that she was one more nail in Dumbledore's coffin.

Detention in the Hospital Wing was never a _bad_ thing, there was a lot of organizing medicine cabinets and re-filing papers and helping out when someone came in, it just took time away from her homework which she could not afford to get behind on.


	109. Apparating Lessons

January 5th, 1996

Seventh Year

\--

“Now, remember the three d’s of apparition, Destination, Determination and Deliberation. One must be completely _determined_ to reach one's _destination_ and move not with haste, but with _deliberation_.” Wilkie Twycross, Apparition instructor and Ministry of Magic official reminded the small group in front of him. 

It was their second lesson and they were going to try to actually Apparate this time instead of sitting around listening to their teacher, whom Leili had said looked like an Albino, with his white hair, blue eyes, and colorless eyelashes, Jo’d had to agree. 

Leili was up first, “All a lot of chickens, they are,” she mumbled mostly to herself—the other students in the class had collectively taken a step back leaving her and Jo in the front. 

Considering that this was her first attempt at Apparating, Leili did pretty well, she moved with a small _pop_ of displaced and then replaced air, she didn’t even splinch herself. Of course, she did launch herself halfway across the grounds instead of the neatly drawn circle three feet in front of her. Instead of Apparating back and risking running into something, like a wall, she decided to walk. “Fair warning: that was like a really bad rollercoaster.”

“A what?” Official Twycross looked confused, like he’d never heard of a rollercoaster before, but then, being a wizard he probably hadn’t, Jo reasoned.

“A rollercoaster,” Jo repeated, when he just looked more confused she added, “It’s a muggle thing.”

“Oh. Is it a mode of transportation?”

“Um. I guess, technically? But it’s more for amusement then anything so _functional_ as transport.”

“Interesting.” He shook his head and went back to teaching, “Please proceed.” Jo took a breath, focused and then ‘ _Pop’_ as she vanished and then again as she landed about a foot outside the circle.

“Woah,” Jo said as she recovered.

“Well done! Very well done! That’s better then I’d hoped for!” Twycross exclaimed, clapping. Jo was determined to succeed, so she tried again, she wound up on the other side of the circle. 

In the weeks to come, this would become common, Leili launching herself 50 feet away while Jo would be within a foot of where she was aiming but would always end up going around the circle, then one day, they got the idea to aim where they were landing and see if they could figure out what was going wrong, when they wound up where the other typically landed Official Twycross decide to try side-along Apparition, in the hope that it would help, and it did, sort of. 

The girls landed in the circle, but, for the next few weeks, they could only Apparate and land where they were aiming when they Apparated together. This was very perplexing for Twycross and a mix of amusing and vexing for the girls. 

Then, a week from the first test Jo Apparated and landed in the dead bang center of the circle, she Apparated back to Leili’s side successfully and whispered the solution in her ear. Leili closed her eyes, relaxed and imagined herself just appearing in the circle and then ‘ _pop’_. When Leili opened her eyes, she was standing in the center of the stupid circle that had come to be the bane of her existence. 

She threw both fists in the air and cried, “HA!” 


	110. Flint

January 1996

Winter Break

7th year

\--

Marcus wanted to meet her family. The sister she was always going on about. The brother she cackled over. Even the father she so plainly detested. He wanted to know more about her life outside the castle walls but she kept turning him down. He wanted to know so much about her and he wondered if the reason she said no was because she could tell _he_ was keeping secrets. He didn’t want to keep things from her but he was afraid of how she’d react. Part of him was afraid that if he _didn’t_ tell her, he’d lose her when she found out, another part was petrified that it wouldn’t matter and he’d lose her anyway he went. So he kept his mouth shut.

He wasn’t like his parents. They wanted him to fall in line. They dangled his inheritence over his head but he’d get a job or two, hell, even three, if it meant Jocelyn stayed with him. His father was a dumpy, mustaschioed member of the Wizengamot, his mother was a house-wife; both were on the Dark Side. They’d jumped at the chance when the Dark Lord reappeared. It was honestly such a relief when his marks had come in and showed he’d failed his NEWTs. The idea that he would go back to Hogwarts in the fall had carried him through the suffocating summer. His stomach had filled with lead when Jo told him about the petition to get rid of Umbridge and threatened to dissolve the Alliance. It wasn’t that he liked Umbridge, she was a lousy teacher, but she gave Slytherins attention and autonomy, treating them like _they_ were the ‘good’ house instead of the ‘bad’.

He wasn’t like his parents. He was nasty to Gryffindors out of habit and a generations old rivalry. The Ravenclaws could be useful, when they could stay focused. Before Jocelyn, he’d barely noticed Hufflepuff; they had such a tendancy to be the silent watchers of the world. But then she’d come along and had shattered every expectation he hadn’t even known he’d had. No one could ever hang ‘meek’ around _her_ neck. She was the reason he’d proposed the Alliance. 

He had no idea that when they went out on dates to restaurants, particularly muggle restaurants as they were tonight, she watched to see how he interacted with the wait staff. What he did when things didn’t turn out right. She watched him to see if he was kind. To see if he was cruel. To see what happened when he lost his temper. To see what _made_ him lose his temper. 

Tonight she’d picked a fancy muggle restaurant and insisted on splitting the check. She’d had to give him a crash course in muggle money before they’d been seated. He watched her leave a good tip and then dug into his own wallet and added the muggle equivalent of an extra galleon. A very good tip. 

He watched that challenging eyebrow tick up as she added some extra funds to her portion of their waitress’ tip. 

He grinned and doubled the amount she’d put down. He felt like they were playing poker or having a staring contest, whoever blinked first lost.

Invisible by virtue of simply being the waitress, the blonde stood there and stared as Jo matched Marcus’ tip. She felt as though she were the banker in a Monopoly game as the money pile grew. She wondered if she should interrupt, stop them before they spent all the cash and coin they had on them. But the challenge in their eyes as they stared at each other was enough to make her hesitate. 

Plus, who was _she_ to say ‘no’ to an amazing tip?


	111. Purr, Purr, Purr

February 9th, 1996

7th year

\--

Jo and Leilani sat in the library trying to finish up some last-minute homework. They both procrastinated. Rather badly. Leili was scribbling out a vexing essay for her Alchemy professor, Jo was studying up on Potions.

Morgan, Leili’s cat, was lying between the girls (who sat opposite each other at the table) watching Leili’s quill wave back and forth and around in the loops of her letters. Every now and then Morgan would reach out a paw and bat at the feather. Leili would distractedly nudge it away and go back to her essay. And then there would come the paw again, _bat bat, bat bat, batbatbatbat._

Eventually Leili had enough of this. “Morgan, would you please not do that? I’m trying to finish this, I’ll play with you later,” she pleaded. Morgan had been unusually clingy this week, sticking to Leili like Velcro, meowing and shrieking at a near constant level.

Morgan responded by catching the quill between her paws and biting down on the end. Leili made a frustrated little noise, extracted the quill, lifted her cat and set her on the floor. “Look, I’m sorry, but you’re distracting. Go back to bed or find some other cat to play with, ok?” Morgan weaved between Leili’s crossed ankles a few times before prancing away, the bell around her neck jingling with every step.

“ _Cats_ ,” Leili scoffed. “Remind me why I chose a cat for a pet again?”

“Because she was cute and she liked you,” Jo reminded.

“Right.”

“And because you couldn’t bring a dog, and your dad is allergic to feathers.”

“That too.”

“How’s the essay?”

“Miserable. Potions?”

“Dreadful.”

The girls sighed and went back to work and Leili didn’t wonder where Morgan went off to.

Morgan however, was happy to roam the castle, and eventually found herself in Umbridge’s office. The damage wrought by Thorn and a few invasive Nifflers had been meticulously repaired and an alarm spell had been set over every threshold in the room, every door, window and fireplace. Morgan sauntered over to the front of the desk and sat. Her tail twitched back and forth as she calculated the jump. She sprang, her claws catching the edge of the desk. Up came her back paws as her front claws dug in further. She hoisted herself on to the desktop and stretched. Her chest went down, her rump went up and she kneaded the tabletop as she pulled her chest towards her tail. She plunked herself on the table and yowled long and loud. She was joined by another cat who yowled back.

When Umbridge burst into her office, wand at the ready, Morgan and her paramour were long gone but there were deep gouges in the desk and several rips in the chair cushions, three kitten plates lay in pieces on the floor and there were ashen paw prints on the plush, pink carpet.

That night at dinner, before Leili had truly begun to worry over her cat being missing—she was usually in the kitchens around feast-time anyway—the staff table had a shiny new addition: one black cat sitting beside McGonagall’s place of honor, being lovingly caressed by the Deputy Headmistress.

Leili dropped her forehead into her hand with an audible _thwack_. “ _Cats_ ,” she moaned.


	112. The Room of Requirement

March 1996

Seventh Year

\--

36 students milled around in the stone walled room. The mirrors that normally covered the walls were absent today, for good reason: the glare of the spells in the mirrors was likely to blind someone. Not that anyone knew that yet. Jo and Leili sat, quietly talking and giggling with periodic wand waves, they were practicing cheering charms on each other, something that would make the following lessons both easier and harder. 

They were to learn Patronus Charms today and a cheering charm would assist in locating happy memories but would hinder them in letting a specific memory fill them. Out went the lights, up came the wands and out of 36 Patronus’ cast, only half a dozen of them produced anything at all. 

Jo and Leili were not initially two of those six. It took weeks of lessons and practicing in their free time before they were able to conjure even the misty shield. It was frustrating but ultimately rewarding, so they kept at it.

When a Dachshund trotted happily from Fred’s wand, tail wagging and tongue hanging out, he looked at it quizzically. 

Beside him, her bunny hopping in merry circles, Luna smiled.

“Did you know that Dachshunds were originally bred to chase Badgers from their burrows?” She asked.

George laughed at the stunned look on his twin’s face as Fred's eyes darted from his sausage dog Patronus to the back of a certain brown-haired Hufflepuff’s head. He had known he loved her, but it hadn’t hit him quite this hard before.

The girls supposed they should have learned how to produce a corporeal Patronus two years ago, what with the over abundance of Dementors at the school, but with the lack of a teacher to learn from, they hadn’t bothered. 

It took more weeks and weeks of practicing and trying to get their shield Patronus’ into something more tangible. 

Harry came over and tried to reassure them, “Most people can’t even get this far with a Patronus, so you shouldn’t worry too much about making them take shape.”

But the girls were nothing if not stubborn. Then the day came when a Dolphin leaped out of Leili’s wand and a Fire Salamander slinked from Jo’s. 

“I’m going to call it Bruni, and it shall be my Bruni,” Jo said prissily.

Leilani raised an eyebrow, grinning, “ _Really_? How interesting. I was expecting a snake.”

“Why on earth would my Patronus be a snake?”

“Ohhh, I don’t know… something to do with a certain tall, muscular, black-haired Slytherin boy we both know? Maybe? At a guess?”

“Why on _earth_ would my Patronus have _anything_ to do with _him_?” Jo asked with mild discomfort. Leili knew her too well. 

Leilani snorted, “Really? You _really_ want me to answer that question?”

While her Salamander gently smoldered, Jo read between the lines and tried her best not to grin or blush. Looking stubbornly at Leili’s Patronus, she said, “Shut-up, Flipper.”

Both Leilani and her dolphin laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In cases it wasn't obvious, yes, I wrote this after seeing Frozen 2.


	113. Detention

March 29th, 1996

Seventh Year

\--

Jo oozed into her chair, leaned back and folded her arms. She’d earned a detention for speaking truth to stupid. Here she was, unhappy but ready to serve. Recently, Professor Sprout had been assigning detentions, taking the risk out of the punishment but Umbridge had smiled sweetly and declared she just wanted Jo to write lines. It seemed so reasonable—odd, but reasonable—that no one could formally object.

“Just copy what you see on the board, dear,” Umbridge crooned. “Use the quill and parchment on the desk.”

Jo picked up the quill and gave it an experimental scratch on the paper, the ink that came out was a bright as bloody rubies—an odd choice for a school that typically preferred black ink—the wizarding world had finally invented the quill equivalent of a muggle pen. Well, it was about time! The sheer number of inkwells she’d accidentally knocked over was embarrassing and after seven years, she _still_ did it! Jo spun the quill between her fingers, black and sharply pointed at both ends. It was a bit sinister looking for a quill.

First line: _I will not tell lies._ “Ouch!” she hissed, shaking out her hand. It felt like having a needle dragged across the skin, but her hand showed no sign of it. 

Second line: _I will not break rules._ A sharp pain bit into her hand this time and while it lingered, her hand was only slightly red. 

She kept on with her lines, repeating the first and second twice more, while shooting suspicious glances at her hand until each scratch of the quill opened up a corresponding, bleeding line on her hand that healed over quickly but left her hand hurting and red. Dumbfounded, she stared for a second. She was bleeding. She surreptitiously sniffed the page, blood. She was writing in her own blood.

She stared at her hand in shock.

“Oh, hell no,” she whispered. How had she not _known_ about this?

“Something wrong, dear?” Umbridge smiled without looking up.

She stood abruptly, knocking the chair over. She stomped past Umbridge who spluttered angrily, ordering her to get back to her seat.

She ignored the orders. The only way she was sitting back down was if Umbridge magically forced her to do it. 

She stalked out the door and down the hallway. The sight of a young ‘Puff stopped her cold. Her eyes narrowed and she whispered, _“No…_ ” before she turned on her heel and hightailed it back to her common room. Bursting through the door she yelled, “How many of you have had detention with Umbridge?”

Hands rose.

“How many of you used her quill?”

No hands.

“Don’t you _**dare** _lie to me,” she growled and slowly hands began to go up.

Every single student who had been in detention recently had used the quill. Betrayal and hurt and anger warred for dominance inside. How _dare_ they not _say_ something! They were being hurt and they just let it happen?! Idiotic! Didn’t they trust her? Or Leili? Or the prefect? Why didn’t they trust them to fix it? They fixed everything else!

She jabbed a finger at the stunned prefect, “You: find out how many there are in the other houses.”

Leili, who’d been sitting on the stairs reading, watched startled as the room descended into chaos. Jo turned on her heel and walked purposefully out the door. 

As Leili scrambled to her feet to follow, Jo called over her shoulder, “I want a _list_!” 

Leili asked, “What’s going on? Where are we going? What list do you need?”

To each question Leilani asked Jo would simply mutter an incomprehensible answer. After a while, Leili gave up and just followed silently. Jo somehow managed to bully her way past the gargoyle that blocked her way to the Headmaster’s office. She stormed up the spiraling staircase and burst into the office, flinging both doors open.

“You’ve got a toad infestation, Dumbledore,” she declared; crossing her arms over her chest, chin jutting out.

“Miss Montgomery! Watch your tongue!” Professor McGonagall cried, her eyebrows shooting up. Leili appeared behind Jo, breathing a touch heavily, she’d practically been chasing Jo down the corridors and up the stairs.

“Can it, cat lady, we don’t have time for that!” McGonagall’s eyebrows retreated farther into her hairline; Jo hadn’t even looked at her when she’d said it.

“Jo, _what_ is going on?!” Leili asked when she caught her breath. She hadn’t been paying attention when Jo had started demanding lists, so she had no idea what was happening. She knew Jo didn’t like Professor Umbridge, no one did so that was no surprise but she’d never been so disrespectful to Professor McGonagall before.

“Umbridge is torturing students. They’re all terrified, too scared to say anything. But _someone_ needs to stop her.” Jo uncrossed her arms, ignoring the smear of blood on her arm and the stab of pain in her throbbing hand as she thrust it out in front of her.

“ ** _WHAT_**?!” Leilani yelled, as she moved up to look closer at Jo’s hand, “I’ll get her for this.” She turned on her heel, heading for the door, which closed in her face.

She growled, low and dangerous, as she pulled at the handle.

“Now, now, let’s not do anything we’ll regret,” Dumbledore chided.

“I won’t be the one regretting _anything_.” Leili said maliciously. Professor McGonagall’s eyebrows had risen so high now they practically touched her bun. 

“Let’s calm down and discuss this, rationally,” Dumbledore said, far too calm and rational for Leilani who let out a groan of frustration and kicked the door. 

Realizing she had no choice, she turned and slid down to sit on the floor, still grumbling. A small smile played at the corner of Jo’s mouth as she parked herself in the chair in front of the desk, her arms re-crossing, Leili wanted blood. She couldn’t blame her, but there was only one way to do this.

“I earned a detention in class and went back to serve it. She told me to use _her_ quill. She makes kids carve the lines into the backs of their hands, using their own blood as ink. It needs to stop.” Jo explained as coolly as she could.

“How could they keep this a secret?” McGonagall said, horrified.

“Probably because nothing else anyone has done has gotten rid of her. She keeps getting _worse_.” Jo could hear Leili muttering behind her; then heard the clatter of one shoe, then the other. She could hear Leili’s bare feet padding across the stone floor as she came to kneel beside the chair. 

Leilani gingerly took Jo’s hand in her own and quietly said, “ _Aguamenti_.” She used the water flowing from the tip of her wand to wash the blood off. Leili dabbed gently with the top of one of the tall socks she’d pulled off of her feet. As the blood began to ooze from the wound again Leili tapped it with her wand. “ _Ferula,_ ” she cast, watching as bandages would their way around Jo’s hand. “There, that should do for now.” Detention with Madam Pomfrey had been good for something, at least.

“Jocelyn, there’s not much we can do with just the word of one student against Professor Umbridge. She has the full support of the ministry behind her,” Dumbledore said gently, just before there was knock on the door.

“Jo? I’ve got the list!” a boy’s voice called. 

“Right on time.”


	114. SNEAK

March 29th, 1996  
Seventh Year  
-

The Hufflepuff prefect was let into Dumbledore's office looking slightly bewildered.

"I'll take that, thank you!" Jo said as she retrieved the list of students who'd taken detention with Umbridge. "Since our petition didn't work, here's evidence of systemic abuse."

"Hey, Ernie," Leili said softly.

"Hey, any idea what's going on?" Ernie Macmillan asked.

"You haven't had detention with Umbridge, right?" she asked, just to clarify.

Ernie had been very objective on the debate over whether Voldemort had returned or not. He reasoned that, since he had not seen what Jo and Leilani had seen, he had no business calling them liars and Hufflepuffs stuck together. He also reasoned that, because he was not there, he had no business confirming what they said was true, even if all the evidence pointed towards a big neon flashing sign saying, 'Voldemort is back!'.

"Right," he confirmed. "But Jo said to ask for the names of every student who'd had detention that used her special quill, turns out, it's pretty much all of them."

"That quill carves what's being written into the back of the writer's hand. It's barbaric. And the kids are too scared to say anything; the only reason we're doing this is because Jo found out when _she_ went to serve detention. Since Umbridge has the Minister's personal support, the word of _one_ student won't be enough to kick her out, but if we have the word of every student she's tortured, maybe our thick-headed minister will see some reason."

"Umbridge has been torturing the students who spend detention with her, this piece of paper lists all of their names," Jo said as she handed Dumbledore the list. McGonagall walked around the desk to stand beside Dumbledore, to better see the list.

"Are you sure about this?" McGonagall asked, looking at Ernie, Jo and Leili over the top of her glasses.

"If she's sure, I'm sure, Professors," Leili said. She'd managed to avoid detention by keeping her head down and her jaws clenched. She didn't want to spend any more time in Umbridge's presence than was absolutely necessary, but Jo had always had difficulty controlling her temper.

"I collected the signatures myself, Professors," Ernie said.

"All the same Albus, the ministry will be hard to convince on the word of two teenaged girls…"

"Perhaps we'll take some of the students with us so they can relate the account in person." Dumbledore said, looking over the list. "Thank you, girls, Mr. Macmillan. We will stop this, go back to your common room. Oh, and Miss Montgomery? Do try not to get into any more trouble, and get that hand of yours checked in the Hospital wing, " he smiled sadly at her.

As Leilani walked Jo to see Madam Pomfrey the protean charmed coin in their pockets warmed. They had a D.A. meeting in a few minutes, probably working on their Patronuses one more time before moving on.

xx

Meanwhile, Dumbledore and Fawkes made their way to the Minister's Office to present him with evidence of his underling's corruption. Just in case things didn't go as he was hoping, Dumbledore brought along two students from the list, Lee Jordan and a second year Slytherin, the scars from detention plain on the backs of their hands. Dawlish, Shacklebolt and Percy Weasley served as the Minister's witnesses to what was about to transpire. "Minister," Dumbledore said as he entered the room.

"Ah, Professor Dumbledore, I was just on my way to see you, in point of fact. Weasley, take notes."

"Yes, sir," Percy replied obediently.

"I have come to tell you to remove High Inquisitor Umbridge from my school," Dumbledore declared simply.

Fudge laughed, "Why in Merlin's name would I do that?"

"Because she is using her position of authority to torture my students and I cannot allow it to continue. I said nothing when she took your party line on Voldemort's return but the abuse of children is something I cannot abide. This is a list of students who have been subjected to your subordinate's cruelties," Dumbledore extended the rolled up list and gestured to the students at his side. Jordan brought his fist to his chest, the scars standing stark white against his dark skin.

"See here, Dumbledore!" Fudge whipped out his own piece of parchment, shoving it under his nose. "You've been plotting against me this whole time! How am I to believe what you say when you have been building an army of those same students against me?!"

 _Dumbledore's Army_ the page read and a list of familiar names followed. He'd known about the meetings, he hadn't known they'd named themselves after him. It was very flattering. A ghost of a smile twitched his lips. "My doings have no bearing on how a teacher you appointed behaves in my school."

"Good lord, man!" Fudge cried. "They have everything to do with it! If you hadn't been conspiring behind my back, she wouldn't have had to take the measures she did!"

"And torturing children is an acceptable measure?" Dumbledore was aghast, Fudge had gone further down the rabbit hole than he'd realized.

"Oh, come, come now! Delores isn't _torturing_ these children!" he laughed, "she's instilling a discipline that we feel has been lacking under your administration! The children don't like it so they come crawling to you to make their lives easy again! You've spoiled them, Dumbledore."

"He doesn't spoil us!" the young Slytherin shouted. "He's good and fair! He works _hard_ to keep the school safe and Professor Umbridge is ruining it!"

Dumbledore smiled genially at his student.

"That was quite an impassioned speech, young lady, but I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about."

"She won't even let us use magic! How are we supposed to defend ourselves if we never _learn_?!"

"What _danger_?" Fudge laughed. "You-Know-Who? He's long dead and anyone telling you otherwise is lying and trying to undermine this administration and _I won't have it_!" he slammed his hands on the table for emphasis.

"You won't even listen to us," Lee Jordan said in hushed tones, shaking with anger.

"I see," Dumbledore said, putting a hand on Lee's shoulder.

"Yes. Now, Albus Percival Wulfric Brain Dumbledore, I am placing you under arrest for the high crime of conspiring against your government, you are hereby removed from your post and will be sent to Azkaban to await your trial."

The two students gaped open mouthed at the audacity of their minister. Arresting Dumbledore? How _could_ he?

"No," Dumbledore said.

"No?" Fudge repeated in astonishment. "What do you mean ' _no_ '? I'm arresting you, you can't say _no_ to that!"

"I mean, dear minister, you seem to be laboring under the impression that I will 'come quietly'. I have no intention of doing so."

"You're expecting your precious students, your little soldiers to save you, eh? Back in October, she sent me a letter informing me as to your little operation, and she is, right at this moment, _breaking up_ your little army! There's no help coming for you Dumbledore!" Fudge cackled, feeling rather like he'd won. "No help at all! Duplicate your notes, Weasley, and send a copy to the Daily Prophet at once. If we send a fast owl, we should make the morning edition!" Percy dashed from the room, slamming the door behind him, and Fudge turned back to Dumbledore.

"Cornelius, I have absolutely no intention of going to Azkaban. I could break out, of course — but what a waste of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing."

Fudge made a small choking noise and then looked around at Kingsley and Dawlish. Dawlish gave Fudge a reassuring nod and moved forward a little, away from the wall. His hand drifted, almost casually, toward his pocket.

"Don't be silly, Dawlish," said Dumbledore kindly. "I'm sure you are an excellent Auror, I seem to remember that you achieved 'Out-standing' in all your N.E.W.T.s, but if you attempt to — er — 'bring me in' by force, I will have to hurt you."

"Enough of this rubbish!" Fudge cried, pulling out his own wand. "Dawlish! Shacklebolt! _Take him_!"

A streak of silver light flashed around the room. There was a bang like a gunshot and the floor trembled, Lee tackled the young Slytherin, covering her head with the arm that wasn't covering his own. A second silver flash went off in quick succession. Fawkes screeched, and a cloud of smoke filled the air. When the air cleared, the office was in ruins and the tree men were just beginning to stir.

xx

The girls were mostly silent until the meeting, sticking close together, but not saying much. Practicing Patronuses required happy memories, thus the girls were forced to perk up, until Dobby slammed headfirst into a nearby wall.

"Dobby has come to warn you…"

_Slam!_

"What's happened, Dobby?" Harry asked, crouching down to his small friend's level and grasping one of Dobby's skinny arms firmly.

"She… She…" _Wham!_ went Dobby's free fist into his nose, Harry quickly caught that arm too.

"Who is 'she', Dobby?" Harry asked. "Umbridge?" Dobby nodded and lurched forward to whack his head on Harry's bony knee. "She doesn't know, she hasn't found out about this? About the D.A.? Is she coming?"

Dobby wailed, "Yes, Harry Potter, yes!" he stomped his bare feet as hard as he could on the floor. Everyone stared, transfixed in terror until Harry's voice spurred them into motion, he was telling them to run, so, they ran.

Out the door and down the halls, some of them made it, some of them didn't. Draco's trip jinx caught Harry. Inside the room, Leili grabbed Susan Bones, who was about to be trampled, and pulled her between herself and Jo.

"We are going to calmly walk out of here, no one will see us; we will not be caught as long as _we_ do _not_ make a sound, got it?" Jo whispered in the red head's ear. Susan nodded and then felt an egg crack over her head. Both Jo and Leili took one of her hands and they quietly walked out the door and to their common room.

By the next morning, the entire school knew that Dumbledore was gone and how he had taken on the minister, his assistant and two Aurors and then vanished in a flash of Phoenix flame (details of which may have been slightly exaggerated).

Of course there were other rumors surrounding the incident but the important facts were: Dumbledore was gone, Umbridge was in charge, every member of the DA had detention (which everyone was seriously considering just _not_ attending), the girls had acted too late and it was Cho's friend, Marietta Edgecomb, who had told Umbridge about the DA.

"Oh my _god_! She's like—like _oil_ , everything just rolls off her. Like water on a duck! Nothing we do has any effect!" Leili seethed.

Marrietta was in constant tears, ridiculed by almost every member of the DA, she had 'SNEAK' written across her face in what looked like very painful boils. Jo and Leilani did not agree with each other about Marietta.

Jo was of the opinion that Marietta was a traitor and deserved no sympathy. Jo loathed a traitor above all other things.

Leili was less sure. Marietta had betrayed Dumbledore's Army to Umbridge, true, but she wasn't gloating about it, if anything, the girl looked _more_ miserable. If she had betrayed the army out of malice, then surely she would take more pride in her actions, wouldn't she?

But on the other hand, how _dare_ she betray them!? If she'd kept her big mouth _shut,_ the minister would _never_ have had the opportunity to do what he did! Why didn't the list work? Concrete proof of Umbridge's willingness to torture should have earned Umbridge a one-way ticket out of the school and instead they ended up with her leapfrogging over McGonagall to become the new headmistress.


	115. Of Dates and Lost Bets

1996

Spring break

7th year

\---

Jo had lost at poker. 

She never lost at poker, and yet, _somehow_ she had. 

She maintained that Marcus had cheated. She just couldn’t figure out how. 

His prize? A date with her family. 

She didn’t want to introduce them. Her parents’ opinion of her personal life was none of her business and it was easier to keep that in mind when she kept them separate. But this was what he wanted, so she compromised: she’d introduce him to her 12 year-old sister. 

This afternoon’s date was bumper car racing. It had been Jillian’s choice: she wanted the chance to kick her sister’s wizard boyfriend’s butt. If Jo were to tell the truth, she too was looking forward to beating Marcus’ butt. 

The three of them jumped into their cars and started them up. …Well, two of them jumped in and started them up. Marcus clumsily clambered into his car and couldn’t figure out how to start it. He had no knowledge of how a car worked, even if he did, the bumper cars were electric and so had no ignition key to turn, they had three pedals: forward, backward and brake.

Sighing, Jo sidled her little car up next to Marcus and called over the calliope music, “This is no fun if it’s not fair. Put your left hand near your thigh and move it further left until you find a button—the start label may have worn away by now. You may have to feel around ‘till you find it. Once you do, push the button and hit the far right pedal with your right foot to go forward, left foot on the far left pedal to go backwards and use the center pedal if you need to stop. Use the wheel to steer. Got it?”

Marcus tossed a bright smile her way as he suddenly went zooming backwards, “Got it!” he cried, waving.

Jo made a U-turn and careened straight for him, laughing maniacally the whole way. “I’m gon-na GetCHA!” she shrieked as she sped forward, eventually ramming headlong into him. “HAHAHAHAHA!!!!” she laughed as Jillian executed a turn she’d only seen on TV, one where she did a whole 180 and ended up hitting him in the side with the butt of her car.

“Wheeee~!” Jillian cried before zooming off, only to come back around and hit Jo’s car. Marcus noted the laugh as she did was eerily similar to Jo’s, no question they were sisters. He stomped on his reverse pedal, peeling away so he could follow Jillian on a merry chase around the rink. 

Jo caught up with them and bumped into Jillian’s front, using her sister to bump into Marcus; they split the points.

When they were done with the bumper cars, Jo slipped Marcus a few dollars so he could buy the funnel cake Jillian was eyeing. She’d spent her allowance on comic books the week before and couldn’t afford the cake, no matter how badly she wanted it. She’d basically given up on tasting the powdered sugar and strawberry sweetness when Marcus returned bearing cake in one hand and three forks in the other.

Her blue eyes glittered as her face split with a giant grin, her hands came up to clasp under her chin. “I love you. Marry me!”

Marcus laughed, “You’re out of luck, kid. I’m taken.”

Jo shrugged as she dove into the cake, “Eh, she can have you.”

Jillian’s eyes got bigger as she gasped in delight. 

Marcus quirked an eyebrow at his girlfriend before rolling with it and dropping to one knee, producing a bouquet of flowers from the wand hidden up his sleeve, “For you, my _darling_.” 

Jo repressed the snicker as Jillian’s face heated, turning bright red. Jillian fanned her face as she fell into a make-believe faint.

“Oh, look, you’ve killed her,” Jo said with feigned disinterest. Truth be told, this was going better than she could have hoped for.

Marcus shot her an amused look, laying the flowers across Jillian’s lap.

“Jillian,” Jo warned. “You better wake up or I’m going to eat _alllll_ of this cake Marcus bought…”

Predictably, Jillian shot bolt upright and fell upon the cake with sticky abandon.

Under the table Marcus’ hand sought out Jo’s, his fingers brushing against the back of it before winding through hers.


	116. Niffler

April, 1996

Spring break and shortly after

7th year

\--

Today was her 18th birthday. She was, according to the Muggle world, an adult. It was weird, she didn’t feel any different than she had last week, or last month or even last year, when she’d become an adult in the eyes of the Wizarding world and yet, somehow, she was. She was hanging out with her family today, mostly Kanani.

“So what do you want to do today?” Kanani asked.

“Um, well, I did have this one idea.”

“Yeah?”

“I want a tattoo.”

“Seriously?” Kanani’s jaw dropped. This was totally unexpected, she’d been thinking Leilani would want the upper part of her ears pierced or just a nice, calm birthday at home with their parents.

“A magic tattoo, not a muggle one,” Leilani hurried to say. “I’ve got all my birthday money from Gramma and Grampa saved up. I know everybody thought I was going to use it to buy a car,” she laughed.

“What do you want to get?” Kanani asked, still stunned.

“A niffler. On my ankle. They’re cute.”

“Do mum and dad know you want to do this?”

“I… _mentioned_ it _._ ”

“So, no, then,” Kanani grinned.

“Yeah, no, not really.”

“Do you have a place in mind?”

“I’ve been booked since Winter break. Will you come with me? I’m nervous.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Of course I’m nervous, I’m about to be stabbed with needles over and over again just to get a _niffler_ on my _ankle_. I’m terrified! I mean, what if I don’t like it? What if it hurts a lot? You know full well and good I don’t handle pain very well. What if it bleeds? Or fades? _Kanani_!” she whined nervously, “Stop me before I talk myself out of this, please!”

“Stop it. It’ll be fine. You’ll love it, I’m totally sure.”

“You think so?”

“Totally!”

An hour later, the artist was explaining to them how Wizarding tattoos worked. “Most people, when they hear about Wizarding tattoos assume it’s applied with a wand and a spell, but they’d be wrong. You see: it’s not the _needle_ that’s enchanted, but rather the _ink_. This means that a _needle_ , not a wand, is used. The bad news is that it won’t be painless. The good news is it’ll be like our photographs, the tattoo will move around. It’ll interact with anything else you put in that space.” 

Explanations explained and designs approved, the artist began her work, saying exactly what she was doing as she did it. First Leili’s ankle was scrubbed with a pad soaked in rubbing alcohol and then shaved, even though Leili had shaved that morning. 

“Any hair on the canvas can interfere with the process, so this is just standard operating procedure; we do it to everybody,” the artist said. 

She swabbed Leili’s ankle again with more alcohol and then applied the stencil paper. When the paper came away, it left a blue-purple Niffler holding three small stars behind. “You ready?” Both the artist and Kanani asked. 

Leilani could feel her hands shaking, she didn’t think she was breathing, she was so nervous, “Do it.”

“Don’t hold your breath, it’ll just make it worse.” 

Leili tried to breathe normally, and then came the first stabs of pain. Normal breathing went out the window. 

“The first minute or so is the worst, you should get used to it after that.” 

Leili nodded breathlessly. 

By the time the outline was done, Leilani was _very_ light headed.

“Do you have anything to deaden the pain a little?” she squeaked.

The artist frowned, “It hurts that much?”

“I don’t do pain. Like, at all well,” she laughed.

“It’s pretty true, she broke her ribs once and passed out.” Kanani turned to Leilani, “Not to mention the time you dislocated your thumb.”

“There were extenuating circumstances in _both_ those cases! You try being thrown into a tombstone and see how _your_ ribs like it!”

Kanani motioned for the artist to keep going. She’d keep her sister distracted; that should help. Up till now they been pretty quiet, giving Leilani nothing else to concentrate on other than the stabbing pain in her ankle. Plus, talking would help her breathe more evenly instead of not-breathing-not-breathing-not-breathing- _GASP_.

It did help, some. Not a lot, but some.

“Hold still, please,” the artist said.

“Sorry.” Leili stiffened her foot to try and hold more still.

A few minutes later, “Look, if you don’t hold still, I won’t be able to finish inking you and you’ll be running around half colored in!”

“I thought I _was_ holding still! I’m trying!”

Kanani broke in, “She’s not actually talking to you, Leilani.”

“Huh?”

“She’s right, it’s your Niffler that needs to hold still. Whoever enchanted these inks went a little overboard, I’ve never seen such an active outline!”

Leili sat up to look; she’d been lying on her back with her foot in the air. The little Niffler was juggling the three little stars he’d been given. The tattoo turned to look at Leili who jabbed a finger at it and ordered, “Now you hold still! If you keep twitching, she’s going to have to stop and I really want to get this done today, so Cut. It. Out.” 

The Niffler blinked at her and then to Leilani’s surprise, actually nodded! He proceeded to hold still as a muggle tattoo unless otherwise directed. 

Leilani lay back and tried to remember to breathe normally. Kanani kept up the conversation to keep Leili’s mind off the pain in her ankle.

When it was finally, _finally_ done, Leili had a little black Niffler with three little gold stars sitting happy as a clam against her anklebone. 

The artist taped a bandage to Leilani’s ankle, “Ok, this is still an open wound so keep this bandage on for at least two hours. Normally, the tattoo doesn't move until the wound is healed, but this little Niffler is quite a bit more active than usual. So after two hours, you can remove the bandage and wash your ankle. Use lukewarm water and mild soap, pat dry, _no_ scrubbing.”

A week later, back at school, Leili pushed down her sock and proudly displayed one sun-blinded Niffler. Which she promptly got into trouble over.

Umbridge swooped down, dispersing the gathered students like Timon and Pumbaa bowling for buzzards.

“No tattoos are permitted at school!” she crooned.

“I’m 18!” Leilani objected.

“You are still a student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, are you not?”

“Yeesss…” she failed to see where this was going.

“Well, then, no tattoos are permitted on school grounds!”

“Oh sure, I’ll just leave my _foot_ off campus then, next time,” Leili scoffed.

Umbridge began to huff and puff and Leili was sure she was going to blow the school down. Jo took her hand and pulled her along behind as she marched off.

“Just where do you think you are going?!” Umbridge screeched.

“To our Head of House!” Jo yelled back.

“Oh, yes, excellent idea!” Leili enthused and began to march up alongside Jo.

“I rather thought so!” Jo grinned. 

They linked arms and marched on over to Professor Sprout’s Green House office. She had two, one in the green houses and one in the common room, she retreated to the Green House Office when she needed a break from her students. About every other Wednesday.

“Professor Sprout,” Leili called with the tone of a kid searching for their mom to tattle on their older sibling.

“Professor Sprout, we have a prob-lemmm…” Jo said in the same tone.

“Yes, dear, what is your problem?” Professor Sprout responded with a distracted air.

“ _THAT_ ,” the girls said, turning to point at Umbridge who came stomping into the green house.

Professor sprout looked up and her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh yes, I see.”

“Umbridge wants to cut off Leilani’s foo-oot!”

Professor Sprout looked between Jo and the sputtering Umbridge, “I’m used to your dramatics dear, but isn’t that a _bit_ over-board?”

Umbridge spluttered, “ _She,”_ an imperious finger shook in Leilani’s direction, _“_ has violated several of the Decrees for Underage magic set down by the Ministry--”

“I’m not _underage_! I’m 18! Legally an adult in both the Wizarding world _and_ the Muggle world!” the raspberry she blew in Umbridge’s direction was entirely implied. 

Professor Sprout watched the exchange with a rapidly growing headache.

“ _She,”_ more imperious pointing, “has an illegal tattoo on her ankle!”

“SHE was eves-dropping an entirely private and entirely personal conversation with Jo. And by the way, there’s nothing illegal about it!”

Professor Sprout fought the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. 

“ _Detention!_ ” Umbride squawked.

“For WHAT?!” Leilani and Jo shrieked back.

“For purposefully and knowingly breaking several Education Decrees!”

“No! _No!_ You can’t give me detention for breaking a rule I didn’t know existed!”

“A rule that _didn’t_ exist when she had it done!” Jo added.

“And by the way, have I mentioned that I’m _18_?”

“You did,” Jo said matter of factly, voice no longer raised.

Leili responded in an overly solicitous tone, “I did, didn’t I? I rather thought so.”

“Legally, you haven’t violated anything.”

“ _Right_?” Leili said in the way of someone _finally_ finding a person who agreed with them.

“EVERYBODY, let’s just calm down,” Professor Sprout interjected; this was getting out of hand— _beyond_ out of hand. “Delores, Miss Montgomery has a point, the educational decree governing ‘distracting body piercings, hair styles and colors, or tattoos’ went up during the Easter Holiday, when Miss Akina wasn’t on the grounds.”

Umbridge ‘hmphed’. 

Leili thought about mentioning that her nylons, tights or socks covered the little inked Niffler unless she specifically decided to show it off, which led to being the opposite of distracting. 

Before she could, her head of house continued, “Leilani, Jocelyn you _will_ both serve detention…” Leili and Jo gasped in betrayed horror at their Head of House as Umbridge gloated. “With _me_.”

“Now see here, Pomona…!” Umbridge started.

“Delores, they are my students, and as the Head of Hufflepuff House it is up to me to decide with whom they serve their detentions.” It was the best she could do. It was the best _any_ teacher could do now, with Umbridge as usurping Headmistress and High Inquisitor, especially with the full knowledge that Umbridge tortured students now out in the open. 

They did their best to keep their students safe after the truth about Umbridge’s torturous methods had been revealed. They’d been lucky in a way. Dumbledore had been chased away just before the break and the students had been extremely well behaved or not on campus at all since. Their luck wasn’t going to hold for long, though.

“Well I _never_!” Umbridge huffed, whipping out a clipboard and quill and angrily muttering to herself as she took down notes, waddling out of the room.

The girls grinned like fiends at Umbridge’s retreating back. “Go, Professor _Sprout_!” Jo said in amused awe.

Pomona rubbed her temples, “I hope you appreciate what I go through for you, young ladies…”

“Oh, we do!” Leilani assured her. “So about that detention…?” She was _really_ hoping that was just a ploy to get Umbridge out of the room.

“Yes, you do have detention, and our dear High Inquisitor will likely want to oversee it so you’ll be working with the Venomous Tentacula. Be careful: it’s teething again.” 

The girls shrugged, poisonous plant was better than anything Umbridge had planned.

It wasn’t long after that detention that Umbridge declared a new Educational Decree, in which all teachers must delegate the schedule and planning of detentions to her. 

The girls kept their heads down, but not everyone else did. So they took matters into their own hands once again. Leili went to Fred asking how he, George and Lee had gotten into Umbridge’s office without getting caught. Fred promised to give her the details if she and Jo let the three of them help, Leilani agreed and in the dead of night, dressed in shades of almost black the five of them crept on cat-like feet through the halls. 

They snuck up the stairs and disabled the alarm spells. Their wands tips glowed softly as they searched the office for the dreaded black quill. They searched high and low until they found their elusive quarry. 

Well, quarr _ies_.

The twins dragged the box out and counted the smaller boxes inside, six down and three across by four deep. Roughly 72 blood quills lay in malicious wait.

From their pockets, everyone pulled Weasley Joke Quills; all self-inking, all made to look like Umbridge’s blood quill. They opened each of the boxes and replaced the real quills with the joke quills. They had originally intended to replace them with the smart-answer and the defective spell checker quills but after careful consideration they determined that, when caught, the student would be punished more harshly for their attempt to escape their already unfair punishment. This way, hopefully Umbridge would never realize the switch had happened.

“Love you for enabling us,” Leili whispered to Fred as they were leaving.

“Love you too,” he grinned, pressing a fleeting kiss to her cheek.

Faster now, but just as quietly, they took the real quills and reset the alarm spells, making their way down the halls and to their houses. Upon arriving, the five of them threw the quills in the fireplaces so they couldn’t get caught with the stolen things.


	117. We’re off to Save the Wizard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I borrowed heavily from the book in the middle here.

June 17th, 1996

Seventh Year

-

Fred and George had left school in late April, almost two months ago now. The bangs of fireworks and the chittering of mice that used to be wands and the occasional shriek when someone fell into the swamp had all died down. The school had become oddly lonely without all that cheerful noise. On the upside, students were smuggling in mail-order products from the newly opened Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes (“Located at 93 Diagon Alley. A special discount to any Hogwarts student or staff who swears they’re going to use our products to get rid of that old bat!”). 

The fake blood quills did their job well, near as the girls could tell. No one had any fresh scars after an hour when the illusion spells wore off. They were still having no luck getting rid of Umbridge and she now banned all use of wands and demanded ministry-approved textbooks be used for _all_ classes, and Firenze had been sacked. Firenze couldn’t return to the Forest so he lived in the Room of Requirement, having been smuggled in after his very public ousting. He continued to teach the students who knew he was there. 

The same week the twins had fled the school, Morgan had given birth to a litter of tortoiseshell kittens. Leilani had been horrified to find out not only did she now have _kittens_ all over the floor but the pet shop where she had adopted Morgan had in fact _not_ spayed her and for the past seven years, Leili hadn’t noticed—that alone was embarrassing. She wrote a sternly worded letter to the shop and took the basket of cats to a local Wizarding Vet during the next Hogsmeade weekend—it was a miracle those hadn’t been cancelled alongside Quidditch.

She had taken the scolding in silence, bore the indignity of being called irresponsible for allowing this accidental pregnancy to happen and swore to find good adoptive parents for the kittens—thankfully all healthy. It was one expensive day.

So far today was just an ordinary day, Jo was having a potions lesson, allowed with special permission from Umbridge for all students—provided they hadn’t been in detention for at least a week and their lesson plan had met her seal of approval, among other strict requirements—and Leili was reading outside the door. An ordinary day… until Draco came sauntering into the room.

“Headmistress Umbridge wants to see you, sir,” he said snobbishly.

Professor Snape uncrossed his arms and began to follow Draco out, pausing only briefly to freeze Jo’s potion so it didn’t explode while he was gone. “That concludes your lesson for now, Miss Montgomery. You would do well to _make yourself scarce_ ,” he told her, carefully enunciating the last three words just enough. 

“Yes, Professor,” Jo said and when he continued out she followed with her things gesturing to Leili who was waiting just outside the door. When Draco and Snape turned a corner, the girls kept straight for a few feet before quietly Disillusioning themselves and going to follow Snape and Draco. 

“You wanted to see me, Headmistress?” He asked as he walked into the office.

“Ah, Professor Snape, yes, I would like another bottle of Veritaserum. Quick as you can please,” Umbridge said with a wide grin.

“I’m afraid I am out of Veritaserum at the moment, surely you didn’t use all of the last bottle I gave you? I told you that three drops would be sufficient.”

“You _can_ make more, can’t you?” she flushed, her voice becoming that sickly sweet little girl tone she adopted when ever angry.

“Certainly; however it takes a full moon cycle to mature so I should have it for you in about a month,” he said, his lip curling.

“A month? A _month_?” she screeched before her voice turned petulant, “But I need it _now_! I have just discovered Potter using my fire to communicate with a person or persons unknown!”

“How unsurprising,” he drawled. “Potter never has shown much inclination towards following the rules.”

Her voice rose to almost a shriek and she look as though she might stomp a foot as she declared, “I wish to interrogate him! I wish you to provide me with a potion that will force him to tell me the truth!”

“As I said before, I have no current stock of Veritaserum so unless you wish to poison him, and I would have the greatest of sympathy with you if you do, I cannot help you. Of course, the only problem with poisoning him is that most venoms act too fast to give the victim time for any truth-telling…”

“You are being deliberately unhelpful! You are on probation! I expected better, Lucius always speaks so highly of you! Now get out of my office!”

Snape gave an ironic bow before turning on his heel and walking out. 

As Snape approached the door, Harry cried out in desperation, “He’s got Padfoot! He’s got Padfoot at the place where it’s hidden!”

Snape stopped cold and looked coolly back at him.

“‘Padfoot’? What is ‘padfoot’? Where what is hidden? What is he talking about?” Umbridge asked looking back and forth at Snape and Harry. 

The corners of Snape’s mouth turned down and his eyebrows rose, “No idea,” he said before turning and walking off, Jo and Leilani close behind. 

He said nothing but Leili was sure he knew they were there. They followed him to his office and pressed their ears to the door, they heard Snape say, “Albus Dumbledore”, and then heard Dumbledore’s voice.

“Hello, Severus.”

“Headmaster, Potter seems to think Black has gone missing. I suspect the Dark Lord used the link between them to send him a vision of Black in the Prophecy Hall. He and his friends are no doubt headed there now.”

“Sirius is safe, Severus; I’ll send the Order to meet with Harry in the Department of Mysteries now. Try to stop Harry if he hasn’t left already.”

The girls never heard Snape’s reply, nor did they know how Snape had managed to contact Dumbledore. They didn’t hear the reply because they had already taken off down the hall to find Harry. They ran past Umbridge’s office only to find Draco and his friends stunned, disarmed and bat-bogey hexed. 

“We’re too late; judging by the bat bogeys converging on Draco, they’ve been gone a while,” Jo said. 

“The fastest way to get there is by Floo and _look,_ an unoccupied fireplace _right_ _here_ , hooked up and ready to go, wasn’t that _nice_ of Professor Umbridge?” Leili said as she took Jo’s hand and led her to the fireplace. “You want me to go first?” she asked, as Jo had never travelled by Floo before.

“Toss a handful of powder, step in, speak clearly and keep your arms and legs inside the fireplace at all times?”

“That’s it!”

“I can do that, but where exactly are we going?” 

“The Ministry of Magic.”

“And I’ll know when to get out?”

Leili nodded.

Jo took a deep breath, grabbed a handful of the powder, tossed it on the fire, stepped inside and enunciated very, very clearly, “The Ministry of Magic.” 

With a woosh and a yelp she was sent off to her destination. Leili waited two minutes; it was all she felt they could spare, before taking her own handful of the powder and repeating the process. She had travelled by Floo once and it was just as unpleasant this time as it had been before. She soon joined Jo in the gorgeous Ministry lobby; it was a bit ‘Emerald city’ but still, quite lovely.

As the girls ran down the hallway, still under the Disillusionment charm—anyone who saw them go by basically saw a ripple in the scenery that _may_ have been vaguely girl-shaped—Leili fought the urge to hum ‘We’re off to see the Wizard’. She didn’t need to be perverse right now.


	118. Department of Mysteries

June 18th, 1996

Seventh Year

\---

The girls skidded through a door, which slammed closed behind them, and then the room started to spin. “What. The actual. Frick?” Leili asked as the room stopped. It was a phrase she’d borrowed from her American cousins. There were Xs drawn on three of the 12 doors. 

“Well, there’s only one way to find out which door to choose,” Jo said. “We each pick a door and open it. If it’s not our door we copy the Xs.” They both went to a door and yanked it open. 

“Space,” Leili called back.

“Corridor. Figures.”

“ _Flagrante,”_ they cast and then closed the doors. Two more doors down, 7 to go. The room spun again. Jo tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at the door in front of Leili. 

“Do me a favor, trade doors with me.”

“Sure.” They traded.

“Crystal balls over here. What’s in that one?”

“I dunno yet. But it’s bugging me.”

“Jo, we don’t have time! Open the door and see if it's the right one so I can close _this_ door.”

Jo did. Inside were hundreds of shattered timepieces, ranging from time-turners to a bell jar. Jo’s grip on the door turned her knuckles white. She bent double, taking deep breaths through her nose as she tried not to throw up. 

Leili ripped off a shoe, shoved it in the door way and let _it_ keep the door open while she rushed to Jo’s side.

“Are you ok?”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” she groaned.

Leili glanced inside Jo’s room and realized it was _time_ ; the room literally contained bottled time. “Ok, What we’re gonna do is, you’re gonna go to my door, get my shoe and I’ll stay here. We’ll close both doors together, OK?” Jo nodded. Leili pulled off her other shoe, shoved it in the doorway and helped Jo to the door hiding the crystal balls. She made a quick X on Jo’s new door, hurried back across the hall, marked it, yanked out her shoe and counted to three.

They closed the doors, the room spun and Jo instantly felt better, not perfect, but better. 9 doors down, three to go. One more time they each opened an unmarked door, then marked it and closed it and one last time, the room spun. 

One door left.

Jo and Leilani burst into the room, their Disillusionment charm stripped away by the Door Room, just as Harry was trying to negotiate his friends’ release. “You’re not in a position to bargain, Potter,” Lucius Malfoy laughed, “there are ten of us and one of you, or did Dumbledore never teach you to count?” The Death Eaters laughed.

Neville, sweet, brave Neville took a stand next to Harry, “He’s dot alone! He’s still god be!”

“Neville, go back to Ron,” Harry told him but Neville wasn’t listening.

“STUBEFY! STUBEFY! STUBE—!” He was cut off when a large death eater grabbed him around the middle, pinning his arms. The death eaters laughed again behind their masks. 

Without really thinking about it, Leili cast a jinx she was really quite fond of, but never had the chance to use. It was the biting jinx. She aimed it at the mask of the Death eater holding Neville who promptly began to yell in pain as the mask grew teeth and chomped down on his face, forcing him to release Neville rather quickly as he tried to force the mask off. Seeing the simple brilliance of this plan, Jo followed suit and pretty soon, every Death Eater holding a student had something biting them. 

It would have been funny if the situation weren’t so very dangerous. The groans and yells of uncomfortable Death Eaters nearly covered up the slamming of two doors high up above. The 5 remaining members of the Order began raining down spells at the death eaters who, amidst their biting accessories, attempted to return fire.

Harry and Neville crawled across the floor until a Death Eater whose shoes had grown teeth grabbed Harry around the neck and lifted. 

“Give…Me… the Prophecy!”

Harry’s windpipe was getting narrower and narrower by the second and no one around him seemed to notice, until Neville, unable to articulate any particular spell, shoved Hermione’s wand into the man’s eye.

“ _Accio Prophe_ —oof!” Sirius cut off Dolohov mid-spell by suddenly and violently ramming his shoulder into him. 

The two began duelling before Harry regained enough breath to cast, “ _Petrificus totalus_!” Dolhov’s arms and legs snapped together and he fell, quite unconscious, to the hard stone floor. He was probably going to have a concussion when someone revived him.

“Nice one!” Sirius called. “Now I want you to—” he was cut off by a stream of green light that he narrowly dodged.

Across the room Tonks fell, hit by one of Bellatrix’s spells. The other death eaters had either managed to free themselves of the biting jinx or were simply too distracted to notice. 

“Harry, take Neville and get out of here!” A fine plan, except that Neville’s legs wouldn’t stop doing a jig. Lucius Malfoy tackled Harry and demanded the prophecy.

“Neville, catch!” Harry cried as he tossed the prophecy away. Neville tried but between his dancing feet and his not-always-great hand-eye coordination the spun glass ball flew a good ten feet away and smashed on the stone floor. No one could hear a word of the prophecy it had contained. 

“Dubbledore!” Neville breathed, then, louder, “DUBBLEDORE!” a few swerved to look but most didn’t hear. Dumbledore glued the shoes of the Death Eaters nearest him to the floor when he reached the foot of the steps; he also relieved them of their wands. 

Only one pair was still fighting, Sirius and Bellatrix, and everyone was watching. 

Sirius ducked a spell and laughingly mocked her saying, “C’mon, you can do better than that!” and he was right. The next spell, a jet of green light, hit him square in the chest.

Watching Sirius stumble back through the veil, Leili ran towards the archway, intent on pulling him back out. 

Sliding across the conveniently polished floor, she took hold of the edge of the stone arch. 

“Leilani! No!” Lupin cried, racing towards her.

She was about to plunge her hand in when she heard her name being called and hesitated. 

Suddenly, she was tackled away from the veil. They landed hard on the floor.

“What was that for?” She asked as Lupin helped her to her feet.

“I’ll explain later, right now you need to round up the others and get them out of here. GO!”

Leilani didn’t hesitate this time, she ran.

She could hear Harry yelling for Sirius and Lupin restraining him with calm words and strong arms; he’d caught Harry shortly after he’d let go of her. 

Leili caught Jo’s arm and they raced around the kids, ushering them into a corner, much like two dogs herding a bunch of sheep, and began throwing protective spells up around them. 

The girls surveyed the injured teens, Neville had a broken nose and dancing legs, Ginny had a broken ankle, Hermione was unconscious, Luna was winded but ok, and Ron had tentacle marks on his face and arms, Harry was the only one left out of the protective circle and he had escaped Lupin and was chasing down Bellatrix. 

“SHE KILLED SIRIUS! SHE KILLED HIM—I’LL KILL HER!” Harry bellowed as he chased Bellatrix through the door. He heard a door close and the room around him began to spin. 

Jo cast a quiet _finite_ on Neville’s legs and the room was dead silent, all of them having just seen a horrible thing. 

Dumbledore stood there a moment before Apparating away, presumably to find and protect Harry, the death eaters Disapparated as well.

“Leilani, Jocelyn,” Lupin said as he carried a limp Tonks over to them. “I’m truly sorry you had to see that.”

“ _Partis Temporus_ ,” Jo cast: opening a temporary hole in the barriers to allow Lupin and Tonks inside.

“Why did you stop me? I might have been able to—” Leilani said.

Lupin interrupted her with a slow shake of his head, “No, Leilani, the second Sirius fell into that veil, he was dead. If you had gone after him, you would be too. I wasn’t going to allow that. I wasn’t going to deprive your parents of their daughter.” 

In the following silence, Kingsley and Moody joined them, slipping through the closing hole in the shields.

“How did you get here anyway?” Kingsley asked, genuinely surprised.

“Floo powder; where they go,” Leili indicated the so-called golden trio with a simple jerk of her chin, “we go, sir.”

“Now what?” Jo asked quietly.

“Now, we take you all back to the school,” Moody said, gruff as ever.

“Jo and I can Apparate with each other,” Leili offered, trying to figure out a way to get everyone home in one trip. And then she remembered, “But you can’t Apparate into Hogwarts. Right.”

“Yes, I think a portkey is in order,” Moody-who-actually-WAS-Moody grunted.

While Moody created a portkey, Lupin shifted Tonks in his arms; the way he held her, looked at her, the girls could tell he was an absolute goner for her. 

Luna wrapped her arm around Lupin’s elbow when he had Tonks more comfortably settled. Kingsley gathered Hermione up like a doll and Neville took his arm. Ginny wrapped her arms around Moody’s and Ron’s shoulders, Jo and Leili clasped hands and all at once, they touched the portkey and vanished. 

Upon landing in the Hospital wing, surprising Madam Pomfrey with the loud pop and thud that signaled their arrival. Taking down the shield charms Leili looked at Jo and said somberly, “I think I may need therapy for this one...”

“Some Ministry worker’s going to have an interesting morning.”

“You can say that again.”

“Hope you can get your shoes back.”

“Yeah… Wait. What?”

Jo pointed wordlessly to Leili’s stockinged feet.

Leili groaned, dropping her head into her hand.


	119. The Last Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't tell you how much fun the beginning of this one was to write! Go Peeves!

June 21st, 1996

Seventh Year

\--

After an eventful night for everyone, Dumbledore walked into the Forest and retrieved the wayward professor, to pretty much everyone’s disappointment. She was sent to the Hosiptal Wing to be treated for Centaur induced injuries and found herself slumming it with the very students who had led her to her near doom. 

The next morning the Daily Prophet arrived bearing the headline “UMBRIDGE SUSPENDED; INVESTIGATION PENDING” Cheers broke out across the hall, even the castle ghosts joined in. The Headless Hunt took off their heads and bobbed them around the room in celebration. 

One owl swooped through the room to drop a package in front of Leilani. She tore through the purple wax seal exclusive to the ministry and pulled out her missing shoes. She leaned back to scan the Teacher’s table and found Dumbledore smiling at her. He raised his goblet and she raised a shoe in return before sticking her feet back in them.

A loud, joyful, _mischievous_ cackle filled the room as Peeves came spinning through, He nicked professor McGonagall’s walking stick (she was back to work today, but only for show, she hadn’t fully recovered from all the Stuns she took to the chest) and went zooming away with it as Umbridge came creeping around the corner. “Out! Out! Out!” Peeves cried, punctuating each word with _POOF_ from a sock of powdered chalk or a _THWACK_ with McGonagall’s cane.

“Oh, Peeves, don’t hit her too hard!” a teacher called feebly, making no real effort to stop the poltergeist.

“A little to the left, Peeves!” Flitwick shouted, abandoning all pretense.

“HEEEEEEELP!!” Umbride squealed as the stick went WHACK and chalk went POOF.

“I _so_ wish I could help you, Delores!” McGonagall called sweetly, “But unfortunately Peeves has taken my walking stick!” She smiled to herself, looking as happy as when Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup.

Several students stood up and applauded Peeves who paused his work to sweep his belled hat off his head and give a flourished bow before getting right back to it, chasing Umbridge from the grounds.

It was when the investigation into Umbirdge’s torture came about that the plan to destroy the blood quills backfired; without evidence of said quill, Umbirdge was let off the hook and transferred to a different part of the ministry where she would later come to head the Muggle-Born Registration Commission. The girls would come to both regret and not regret the action that bore this unintended consequence.

Sitting now in a little boat rowing itself across the lake, Leilani mused to herself, “I have to admit, school was not entirely what I’d imagined it would be like…”

“Nor me. But hey, it was fun!” Jo agreed.

“I think I might miss it, a little. Not the exams or the homework, but the rest of it.”

“If you mean helping Harry, we’re not done yet. Just because we’re leaving doesn’t mean we can’t still look after him, he’ll need it.”

“I do mean that, but I also mean the Alliance. I’ll miss my little Slytherin buddy and I’ll miss the rest of it, feeling like I was doing something that would help them. You know?” 

“Remember when we set up the DA? We were in the Hog’s head. It looked like they could use some help, it’ll keep us close enough to keep an eye on Harry and in easy reach of the Alliance, should any of the older kids need us.” Jo suggested.

“That’s a great idea! Besides, I’m sure the owner could use some help, with the cleaning at least!” Leili laughed.

The girls got off their boat at Hogsmeade Station and walked the long road down to the village itself. They walked past the Three Broomsticks and took the right turn across from Gladrags and Scrivenshaft’s. 

At the very end of the street they found and entered the Hog’s Head inn. The barman looked up from cleaning a mug with the same dirty looking rag they’d seen him use in October. 

“You again,” he huffed, “Little miss ‘find me a pensieve’ and friend, what d’you want?”

“Are you never going to let me live that down?” Leili asked.

“Not likely,” Jo told her before turning back to Aberforth, “We need jobs and you look like you could use someone to boss around.” An unconventional application, to be sure.

Aberforth looked between the two of them, considering the offer, he didn’t get very many people so he didn’t really need the help, but he liked having people to boss around from time to time.

“What sort of experience ‘ave you got?”

Jo replied immediately, “I am fantastic at breaking up fights,”

“And she’s a good cook! She can make anything,” Leilani added. “I am really good at illusion spells, once fooled a werewolf into thinking a bunch of meat pies was a deer. If you want the look of something but don’t want to do with actually _having_ it, I can probably make it happen with a little prep work.”

“Alright, why do you want the job then?” Aberforth asked.

“There’s… someone at the school who needs looking after,” Leili confided.

“They’re at the school, aren’t they, how much more looking after can they need?”

“Since their first year, they’ve dealt with trolls, possessed teachers, escaped fugitives, dementors, death eaters, a ministry appointed corrupt teacher, possession, giant freaking spiders, and several acts of outright stupidity. Trust me, they need looking after,” Jo told him.

“Fair enough.” Aberforth said, blinking a little from the information overload.

“We also need a place to live…” Leili added.

“Long as you don’t mind sharing, you can have a room here, as long as you’re working for me.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Leili cried.

Aberforth just grunted.


	120. Double Date

June 27, 1997

Post-Hogwarts

-

“Never? You’ve _never_ been to a movie theatre before?” Jo asked them over ice cream. Fred and Marcus had floo powdered over to Leili’s and from there, the four of them headed over to lunch and from there to a nearby ice cream shop.

“Well it’s not like the wizarding world has an abundance of movie theatres around. Considering what magic does to technology,” Leili reminded her

“I know but, _never_?”

“Why don’t you two show us what we’ve been missing all our lives?” Fred suggested. The girls looked at each other and grinned.

“Actually, there is a movie out we’ve been wanting to see,” Jo said.

“Perfect timing, too, it’s only out for today. Special 10th anniversary showing,” Leili explained with a grin.

“Let’s do it!” And so the four of them packed up and headed over to the theatre.

“Labyrinth?” Fred asked, reading his ticket stub.

“Yup! One of the greatest movies of all time, it has a small, but rabidly loyal fan base,” Jo told him as they sat down in the middle of a center row. The four of them watched as 15 year-old Sarah play-acted to her dog in the park, wished her brother away, and as Jareth Magic Danced his way across the screen. After the movie was over Jo turned to the boys and asked, “Well, what did you think?”

“That hair! The sheer amount of makeup!” Marcus gaped.

“Forget the hair and make-up! Those _pants_! Bloody hell!”

“Ooh, the pants. Almost the best part of the movie,” Leili giggled.

“Blimey Leilani, if I’d known _that_ was what you were into I’d’ve had an easier time getting you to go out with me,” Fred said in shock. 

“Oh, _please_ , you had a perfectly easy time of it! I said yes straight away. You asked, I said yes, what’s so hard about that? And it’s not my fault that you took so long. If you’d asked before Oliver did, it would have saved us both some heartache,” she teased before turning to look him up and down contemplatively.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was just imagining you in Jareth’s pants. It looks…rather fetching actually!” she grinned. Well… now he knew his Halloween costume for next year, he sighed, the things he’d do to make her happy. He’d have to see if he could get her to dress up like Sarah.

Marcus was glowering darkly, his arm wrapped securely around Jo’s waist. 

“Oi, Flint, what’s the matter with you?” Fred asked.

“I need to find a way into the movie so I can murder Jareth.”

“You can’t kill Jareth, he’s widely accepted as Fae; he won’t thank you for the attempt,” Jo told him.


	121. Battle of the Astronomy Tower

June 30th, 1997

Post-Hogwarts

\--

The Dark Mark hung between the stars that night and it was one of the most frightening things either Jo or Leilani had ever seen. 

They were supposed to be asleep, but they weren’t. Jo had been uneasy all day, and they both knew by know that if Jo was uneasy about something, it wasn’t a good sign. Her vibes, as they’d taken to calling the gut instincts Jo got, had been wrong once or twice, but most of the time, they were spot on. So instead of being sound asleep in their little beds above the Hog’s Head, they were wide-awake and waiting for the shoe to drop. 

They’d watched Harry and Dumbledore Apparate away, knowing they couldn’t follow this time. When Leili looked out the window again later and saw the dark mark hanging between the stars above the astronomy tower, dread made her whole body run cold.

“Jo,” she said, “look.” 

Jo looked, and swore. 

She grabbed Leili’s hand and together they raced to the portrait of Ariana Dumbledore. Aberforth had showed the secret passageway to them when he’d hired them. It was the fastest way to the castle, short of Apparating. 

Along the corridor they ran, hoping they weren’t too late. When they burst through the other end they saw what remained of Peruvian instant darkness powder in the Room of Requirement and the vanishing cabinet with its doors wide open. 

Jo swore again and her hand tightened around Leili’s, dragging her from the room. 

Leilani wasn’t even entirely aware of running, but she knew that the Dark Mark meant death; she’d heard the stories all her life, and now for the first time since Jo had nearly died in the graveyard, she was well and truly terrified. Students were beginning to gather outside of their houses and there was blood splattered on the floors, on the walls. 

She noticed the feel of lightning on her skin this time, noticed how it circled around the hand Jo held tightly; noticed how Jo _wasn’t being electrocuted_. This was the only time _that_ had ever happened, to her knowledge, if they’d had the time she might have been inclined to examine it further. But they didn’t.

“What’s going on?” a student asked.

“Someone mentioned the Dark Mark…” Another said.

“Get back to your dorms! It’s not safe out here!” Leili yelled at them. “ _GO_!”

Students scattered. 

When Jo and Leili came up on a death eater from behind Leili glanced at their clasped hands and whispered, “Have your wand ready but _do not let go of my hand_.” 

The girls crept quietly up on the Death Eater and Leili reached out a hand and grabbed the back of his neck.

**_CRACK!_ **

The death eater convulsed and involuntarily flew several feet forward before landing on his face. Between being electrocuted and falling face first onto a stone floor, Leili figured he’d be out of it for a good long time. So on they ran, blasting Death Eaters out of the way and never letting go of each other’s hand. 

Upstairs, Draco disarmed Dumbledore and Dumbledore told Draco of his own plan, poisoning Slughorn’s mead, cursing Katie Bell, sneaking the Death Eaters into the castle, a feat he—Dumbledore—had thought impossible. 

Jo and Leili raced towards the tower, Jo’s gut instinct leading the way, while Draco explained his mending of the Vanishing Cabinet and his placing Madam Rosmerta under the Imperius curse to Dumbledore. 

The girls took solace in the fact that none of the students had been killed thus far. Some had been injured, one first year had cruel scratches down one cheek; another student was lying unconscious in the corridor, but no one was dead. Yet. They kept running.

They never made it to the Astronomy tower in time. 

With a sharp tug, Leili pulled Jo over to the window when she saw a large object hurtle past. When Jo saw the body lying on the grass she slapped a hand over Leili’s eyes, but it was too late, she’d already seen. 

They had no time to mourn for shortly after Dumbledore hit the ground the Death Eaters were spilling out of the Astronomy Tower, cursing anyone in the way. They didn’t look twice at the girls. Except for one lone Death Eater, who stopped and stared at them. 

They raised their wands, prepared to give tit for tat should he attack. 

He didn’t. 

He stared.

He just stared and then _walked away._

The Death Eaters spilled out into the main castle wreaking havoc and destruction, except Snape and Draco who led the Death Eaters out onto the grounds. They didn’t fight; they just walked. 

Once out on the grounds Harry attacked Snape. The girls could hear the spells being bandied about but they didn’t rush to help him. Even if Snape truly was a Death Eater, they truly believed he wouldn’t hurt Harry. 

Instead they began to gather the wounded. 

Leili couldn’t touch the wounded; she’d just end up electrocuting them. She conjured stretchers instead and Jo carefully moved the wounded on to them. Bill Weasley was one of them. An unknown Auror was another. Professor Flitwick had been stunned, but was otherwise ok.

The girls levitated the badly wounded to the hospital wing while the Order assisted those who were less badly wounded. The Order also began to put the castle to rights again, cleaning up broken dishware and windows. 

There were a few Death eaters left inside the castle, unconscious or dead. If they were unconscious Leili took one lighting covered hand and just made sure they’d stay that way. No one spoke.

Outside students and teachers gathered around Dumbledore’s body, lying broken on the grass beneath the tower. Jo and Leili were near the front of the crowd when Harry and Hagrid made their way there. 

Someone from Ravenclaw asked, “Oi, Leilani, d’you—d’you think you could bring him back?” It was a Hail Mary, a student’s last-ditch efforts to save the day. They had noticed the lightning still on her skin and had heard of electricity to the heart to get it beating again.

But Leili shook her head, “Even if I could, he fell too far, you don’t survive that kind of a fall.”

“It wouldn’t work anyway,” Harry said softly, “Snape cast a Killing Curse.” Slowly he noticed something hard under his knees. It was the locket.

Picking it up, he opened it and then the bit of parchment that lay inside. On it, in tiny script, was a note,

_To the Dark Lord,_

_I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more._

_R.A.B._

Much later that night, there was a soft, rattling _clatter_ on a window of the Hog’s Head. A pause. Then again, _rattle clatter._ Jo stood to look out the window and a grin lit her face. 

“It’s Marcus! I’ll be right back, Leili.” She headed down the stairs and met him on the lane. 

Then she noticed his robes. 

The mask in his hand. 

Her grin fell away, leaving her confused. “From whom did you take that?” She walked over to him, gingerly taking the silver, skull-like mask from him.

It felt wrong in her fingers. 

Cold and foreign and _wrong._

One finger traced the carved whorls and chills shivered from her fingertip all the way up her arm and along her spine. She jerked the finger away from the frigid surface as that chill slithered along her jaw, curling under one ear.

He pulled his hands behind him, positioned there at the small of his back, his elbows stuck out. “I didn’t take it.”

“What, you just found it on the ground?” Jo said, a disbelieving chuckle accompanying her ‘that’s stupid’ look.

“No, it’s mine.”

“Yours?” She didn’t understand. 

She didn’t want to understand.

“Mine,” he whispered, slipping the mask from her fingers and putting it on.

Jo stopped breathing.

 _Death Eater_. 

She’d seen him.

He’d looked straight at her.

He’d looked straight at her and _walked away_. 

He took off the mask and handed it back to her. When she didn’t reach out to take it, he took her hand and pressed the mask into it. Her fingers clenched on its edge, nails biting into the undersurface.

For an eternity she stared at him. For an eternity the only sound was her heartbeat in her ears. Then, “You’re a fucking _Death Eater_!?” she screamed, shocked and hurt that he would do something like this. 

After all they’d been through, after all their conversations at school about how not all Slytherins were evil. She watched as he stood, back ram rod straight, face a mask of indifference, his voice quiet and calm in the face of her wrath.

“It is the highest honor the Dark Lord can bestow upon one such as me.”

“ _WHAT_?!” she cried, “What the _hell_ does _that_ mean?!”

He said nothing, his hands clasped behind his back, feet shoulder’s width apart, chin up, eyes on her.

“They _told_ me I couldn’t trust you. I didn’t believe them,” she chuckled wryly, “I didn’t _want_ to believe them. Well, _shame on me_.”

Years of warnings sounded in her head like a cacophony of bells, all chiming together. 

Leili saying, “slimy things are slimy things”, the other students’ insistence that anyone from Slytherin could not be trusted. People’s shocked looks when he’d held her hand. 

The way he wouldn’t introduce her to his parents.

“They’re pure-blood,” he’d said. 

“They wouldn’t understand,” he’d told her. 

“I’m not like them,” he’d insisted. 

“Shame on me,” she repeated. A frown tugged at her eyebrows, “You know what, no. No! Not shame on me, shame on _you!_ Shame on you for making me trust you, for making me _love_ you! You need to pick. Me or him? _Choose where_ _your loyalty lies_.”

He blinked languidly at her, her fists clenching and unclenching, her brow furrowed as she awaited his decision. 

His chest rose with the deepest breath he could take and his answer came as a whisper, “My loyalty belongs to the Dark Lord.”

In a flash her wand was out, the mask crashed to the cobble stoned ground and without a word, things around them rose into the air and hurled themselves at Marcus. 

She turned and stormed away, Apparating between one step and another to Leili’s side.

She didn’t see him not defend himself.

She didn’t see him stand there and take the beatings of inanimate objects.

Her arms around Leili’s neck, she promptly collapsed into a puddle of tears and snot. “You warned me,” she sobbed. “You were right, the who-whole tihihime! I _never_ should have trusted him!”

Leili stroked Jo’s hair “We’ll call it even. You warned me about Oliver, I warned you about Marcus Aurelius.”

Jo chuckled wetly at the nickname.

“It’s ok. It’s gonna be ok,” Leili soothed.

“How? _How_ is it going to be ok?”

“I don’t know,” Leili smiled and pulled back to look at Jo, “it’s a mystery.”

Jo laughed through her heartbreak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand Ow. This one hurt to write, I only hope it hurt you to read. If anyone guessed it was coming, I'd like to know. I tried to foreshadow but I'm new at it so *shrug*.


	122. The Funeral

July 1st 1997

Post-Hogwarts

\--

A white table sat in the shade of trees on the grass near the lake. A few feet away sat rows and rows of white chairs. Chairs that were slowly, mournfully, filled with people—teachers, students, old friends—all wearing various shades of mourning black. Hagrid wept loudly front the last seats in the front row. Mersong floated in on the breeze, haunting and sad. 

Jo and Leili sat a few rows back on the other side from the trio. Jo and Leili both wore knee-length black dresses. Jo’s was a halter with a low back designed to show off her tattoo, she’d gotten it as a graduation present near the end of June. Leili's had skinny straps tying into bows where they joined the square back. 

The girls clasped hands and the twin Occamy tattoos they’d gotten the night before twined together across their wrists like the scars of an unbreakable vow. A little tufty-haired man in plain black robes stood and took more or less center stage. The odd word floated back to them over the hundreds of heads.

“Nobility of spirit” . . . “intellectual contribution” . . . “greatness of heart” . . . It didn’t mean very much. It was all true, no doubt of that; but it just didn’t sum up Albus Percival Wulfric Brain Dumbledore. Dumbledore’s _name_ said more about his personality than the speaker did. Dumbledore’s idea of a few words, “nitwit,” “oddment,” “blubber,” and “tweak,” said more about him than anything said so far.

The girls hadn’t known Dumbledore well, very few people had, but they had liked him a great deal. They hurt for Harry, who had, of all of Dumbledore’s students, known and loved him the best. The poor kid had lost almost every parental figure he’d ever had, except for Molly and Arthur Weasley, but knowing him as they sort’ve did, he wasn’t going to stand by and let _them_ die to protect him. So the girls would have to do it in their stead, though preferably without the dying bit. 

The little tuft-haired man in black had stopped speaking at last and retaken his seat. After a minute several people screamed. Bright, white flames had erupted around Dumbledore’s body, rising higher and higher. White smoke spiraled into a cloudless blue sky, Fawkes soared over-head, singing a mournful tune as the phoenix bid goodbye to his best friend. When the fire vanished, in its place was a marble tomb, hiding Dumbledore from sight. There were a few more cries of shock as a shower of arrows soared through the air, but they fell far short of the crowd. Fawkes, the centaurs and the merfolk had said goodbye and everyone got up one at a time to do the same. 

The girls got up—giving everyone an eyeful of Jo’s tattoo, a tawny and golden-feathered Thunderbird across her shoulders that flapped its 6 wings and created little storms at the nape of her neck—and instead of leaving flowers or a pair of nicely knitted socks, they left samples of the various candies that had been used as password to the headmasters office in the seven years they’d been there, sherbet lemons, acid pops, licorice snaps and more. 

As they walked away, Fred trotted up alongside and scooped up Leili’s free hand. Her Occamy disengaged itself from Jo’s and spiraled up her arm, circled her neck once before spiraling down her other arm to look at Fred with big amber eyes. He chuckled at it; it had grown to stretch from her shoulder to rest its chin on her knuckles. He gave her a swift kiss and stroked the top of her Occamy’s head with his thumb before trotting away.

“You two give me cavities,” Jo grinned.


	123. Something Borrowed, Something Blue

August 1st, 1997

Post-Hogwarts

\--

Marcus arrived at the Burrow early, very aware of being watched, fully expecting to be thrown out on his ass the second someone saw him. Fred and George clapped him on the shoulders and pushed him towards their mother—who frankly scared him more than almost anyone else—and he thought for sure she was going to kill him and bury his body in the rose bed but instead she brushed invisible lint from his robes, patted his cheek and directed him into service. His mind reeled as arriving guests smiled politely finally he set on the only possible conclusion: Jo hadn’t told anyone. 

His heart stopped dead for a beat or two as he saw her in a high collared, long skirted dress that showed off the length of her legs. He loved her legs. Scowling at himself, he pushed the unbidden thought away. Just when his heart started beating again, her eyes met his and the smile she wore slipped off her face and his heart stopped again. He stared as her body stiffened, shoulders pulling back defensively before she forced a smile back to her face and turned back to the conversation in front of her. He could just make out the words, “I’ll be right back,” and then she was walking towards him. She grabbed the front of his robes and pulled him into a hidden corner.

“ _What are you doing here_?” she hissed.

Flatly he replied, “You invited me.”

“ _BEFORE!”_ she cried in a whisper. “ _Before_ you went all Darth Vader on me!”

“Darth who?” he blurted.

“Oh forget it. You just—just stay away from me or I _swear_ I will hex you.”

Jo left Marcus in the corner and made her way back to where Fred and George were supposed to be seating the new arrivals, but were instead swapping stories about their Great Uncle Billius to Leili’s hilarity. Fred was holding Leili’s hand and it looked like that tether was the only thing keeping her on her heels.

“When I get married, I won’t be bothering with any of this nonsense. You can all wear what you like, and I’ll put a full-body bind curse on Mum until it’s all over,” Fred said. 

Leili looked at him, surprised into sobriety, “ _When_ you get married?” They never talked about the future; they just followed their relationship day to day. Though she had of course fantasized, she’d had no idea that he was doing the same. 

Fred grinned at her, his long fingers tying hers into knots, “You do want to get married, don’t you?”

“Yes!” Leili said, the word bursting out of her. The smile he gave her was blinding.

“You would body bind your own mother to keep her from meddling?” Jo asked archly as she returned.

“Wouldn’t you?” George grinned as they all turned to stare at Molly who was fussing over some tiny detail that she seemed to think required her immediate and unconditional attention.

“You’re right, I would,” Jo said. “Here’s the real question: d’you think it would _work_?”They all turned as Molly came to fuss at them for not having taken their seats yet. Fred and George stood outside, dickering with their mother, just for fun, for a little while.

Leili took Jo’s arm and led her away to their seats where Marcus was waiting. 

“Do you want to switch seats? You can sit on the other side of Fred, keep a buffer.” Leili asked as Jo sat, stiff and uncomfortable beside Marcus who—small blessings—looked just as uncomfortable as she did.

Jo shook her head, resigned to see this through.

Leili took pity and changed the subject, “Sooo, am I crazy or did I just get proposed to?”

Strain edged Jo’s wicked grin, “It _was_ done in Weasley fashion; remember, he asked you to come to _this_ wedding that way _and_ he asked Angelina Johnson to the Yule ball the same way,” Jo told her, “but you may just have weddings on the brain, dear.” 

Marcus was being left out of the hushed conversation, but then, he was used to that. It was nothing against him after all. At least, it wasn’t _normally_ anything against him. Jo didn’t trust him anymore, after all. He’d been invited to the wedding before his outing as a Death Eater. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t promptly been dis-invited. His orders were to get her to take him back—something he wasn’t doing very well. He was going to have to put someeffort into it though or else his watchers would know.

Laughing, Leili elbowed her in the ribs as Fred came to sit beside her. George and Angelina came to sit beside them when she arrived. 

In part due to Fred and George’s neglect there was little order to the seating; the two families didn’t sit on opposite sides of the tent but rather, co-mingled, as was obvious by the quiet sobbing Mrs. Weasley and Mrs. Delacour did when Fleur walked up the aisle escorted by her father. The ceremony was short but sweet and soon they were all standing in the presence of ecstatic newlyweds as the wedding venue shifted into the reception venue. 

Fleur’s dress flounced cheerfully as she and Bill polkaed into the center of the tent starting the reception with their first dance as a married couple. 

Everything and everyone was beautiful, even Luna and her father in their blindingly bright yellow clothes managed somehow to fit in—excepting of course Viktor's argument with Mr. Lovegood—the only stain on an otherwise perfect, golden afternoon. 

No one questioned Marcus’ attendance and he was happy to blend in. When the music changed tempo, he offered Jo his hand. 

“ _You_ expect me to _dance_? _You_. Really?” She didn’t generally dance and she _certainly_ didn’t dance with no-good, sneaking, lying Death Eaters. Every morning she woke up ready to tell the world what he really was and everyday she… just _didn’t_. She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t shouting his betrayal from the rooftops but something told her to not. She wasn’t sure why she was listening to it.

“Yep, C’mon.”

“No!” she said, incredulous.

“Just… dance with me. Pretend the world doesn’t exist,” he pleaded. “For three minutes. One dance, that’s all I’m asking. Jocelyn. Please. …Unless you want people to ask why we’ve been so distant today.”

Jo took his hand with a scowl, “Low blow, Captain. Low blow.”

Her dress had slits up to mid thigh on both sides, allowing her to tango with Marcus without tearing the black fabric with its metallic red designs. She’d never tangoed before, but apparently he had and he talked her through the steps. 

“Heels together, toes out. When you bring your feet back together, don’t shift your weight until you finish stepping. Now, left foot forward, feet together—don’t shift your weight—sidestep right, feet together, left foot back, right foot back, left cross over right, balance on your left foot.” He paused briefly, then, “Right foot steps back to uncross, left side step, right foot forward, feet together.” He tapped his fingers against her hand or shoulder blade depending on which foot she needed next. He gathered her closer so their chests and cheeks were pressed together, “Close your eyes and feel my weight shift. Pick up your heels, not your feet, drag your toes.” 

Dancing with him felt so much like normal, it physically hurt. She was glad he couldn’t see her face and even more glad to close her eyes so she might stop herself from crying.

 _‘Get her to take you back’_ , well, orders were orders; he may as well make it look like he was making an effort. The tango made it easy for him to reach her ear. In a soft, gravely voice he sang, “How you turn my world, you precious thing… you starve and near exhaust me.”

“DO NOT sing that song,” she growled, her irritation unbalancing her on the cross step.

“You said you liked it,” he said as he helped her steady herself.

“I don’t.” _That_ was a lie. Sort-of. She did like the song in a ‘David Bowie just ripped out my heart and stomped on it and now I’m about to cry’ kind of way.

“You said it was romantic.”

“Romantic is the other one.” _I’ll paint you mornings of gold; I’ll spin you valentine evenings, though we’re strangers till now, … I’ll leave my lo-ove between the_ stars. _...I'm falling, falling in love As the world falls doooown... “Romantic_ is the one that goes ‘You remind me of the babe’.”

He gave her a skeptical glance.“It’d be nice to do this again, someday,” he said.

“The dancing or the wedding?” Jo asked warily.

“Both,” Marcus said turning to plant a light kiss on her lips; she leaned back at the last second so all he kissed was air. 

“What’s it gonna take for you to trust me again?” he sighed, falling back into proper Argentine Tango frame.

“You already know,” she growled back. A miracle. It would take a miracle. Possibly some time-travel.

He guided her into a spin.

“I’m choosing _you_ Jo. I’m choosing you,” he whispered as she came back into his arms. 

She stared at him. She wanted _so badly_ to believe, but she didn’t dare. He’d broken her heart once; she wasn’t going to let him do it again.

Meanwhile, Leili was behaving rather like her cat towards Muriel, hissing and spitting. If she’d had hackles, they’d be raised.

Muriel was suggesting not only that Ariana was a squib, but also had been kept prisoner in the cellar by her mother, her own _mother_! 

“A coffin side brawl!” Muriel was saying, her glee growing in leaps and bounds the longer this conversation went on. 

Leili had been dragged into it on account of hating to see someone disparaged when they couldn't defend themselves, especially kids and especially _dead_ kids.

“Albus did not even _defend_ himself! And that’s odd enough in itself considering he could have destroyed Aberforth in a duel with both arms tied behind his back!”

Leili couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer, couldn’t _listen_ to this awful woman gossip about a dead little girl and the family that had been so good to her and her friends. The _nerve_ of this woman! The sheer _gall!_

“Did it ever occur to you that that's why he didn't defend himself?” she said angrily, jumping in. “Because he had _just_ lost his sister and couldn't bear to hurt his brother? The _only_ family he had left?! You-you-you-you you _repeat_ things that you hear, things you don't even think there might be another side to! Did you ever speak to Albus or Aberforth? No! Of course you didn't!” 

Leili shook with fury as Muriel gulped down more champagne. “And look at you! Sitting here swilling champagne. You don’t _care_ if it’s true or not! You and Rita Skeeter just want to spread vile rumors and watch people swallow it whole! Well I’m. Not. Buying. So _what_ if Albus was friends with Grindlewald when they were kids? He stepped up in the end, he did what was right and defeated Grindlewald and put him where he will _never_ hurt anyone again. I wish they’d do the same to you.” 

Muriel turned glittering eyes on Leili and if she had been thinking instead of fuming, she might have regretted getting involved.

Maybe. 

Probably not.

“Leilani, come on, let’s dance,” Fred said, appearing suddenly beside her and taking her hand. Leili bristled at Muriel again before storming onto the dance floor, half dragging Fred with her.

“People like that just make me so _mad_!”

Fred danced her until she was half exhausted and breathless and lost some of her edge. 

“Why do you think George and I set a Dung Bomb off under her chair?” He grinned, pointing their joined hands back towards Muriel and the guests that were fleeing from her in droves as smoke drifted out from under her chair.

Leilani laughed.

“You have your way of dealing with people like her, George and I have ours.”

Leili squeezed his hand gratefully. Fred had a way of making her feel better just by being near; Jo could do it too.

She muttered, “We are _not_ inviting her to the wedding.” She was joking. 

Sort-of. 

Not really.

Or at all.

He huffed a laugh and while she was distracted with a spin, the skirt of her blue dress—the same one she’d worn to the Yule Ball—wrapping around her legs, he extracted something from his pocket and looped it onto his pinky for temporary safe-keeping.

Suddenly, a silver orb of light crashed through the canopy and a Lynx Patronus landed amidst the revelers. All stopped and turned to look, those nearest the cat froze awkwardly mid-dance.

“The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming,” Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice echoed and everything erupted. People panicked as the protective enchantments shattered, the crowd surged and someone screamed. 

Death Eaters Apparated and the members of the Order were throwing protection charms up as fast as they could. Fred half dragged Leili over to Marcus and Jo as Harry and Hermione caught Ron and Disapparated.

Jo was staring at Marcus in horror. Her worst suspicions, that he had come here not to be with _her_ , but to hurt Harry, had just been confirmed. His back went straight and his stance shifted as his death eater robes settled like smoke over his dress robes. 

He didn’t reach for her; he just stared at her. His eyes were big and brown and cold. She wanted to kill him. Leili dragged her away instead.

“You two need to get out of here,” Fred ordered as they moved. “Get somewhere safe.”

“We need to get _these_ _people_ out of here,” Jo objected.

Fred agreed, “Get as many people out as you can, but do it fast, there’s no time.”

“I love you,” Leili said, pushing up on her toes to kiss Fred before dashing off to help round up those she could before meeting back up with Jo and Apparating together to the Leaky Cauldron. 

To the customers of the inn, the dozen or so people in dress clothes that suddenly Apparated into their dinnertime looked like a very fancy, rainbow colored human chain. 

“Shit!” Jo swore vehemently. She waited until they were in their room before falling into heartbroken sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a dash more pain...


	124. Wedding Aftermath

August 1st, 1997

Post-Hogwarts

\--

The Burrow:

The Death Eaters were not satisfied that Harry Potter did not appear to be with the Weasleys so they continued to interrogate them and turn the Burrow upside down. Marcus leaned against a once golden pole and watched the Death Eater sentry out of the corner of his eye. He’d perfected the strong, silent type attitude years ago and the façade wouldn’t break until he allowed it to. Well, sometimes if Jocelyn snuck up on him it would crack, but he’d been working on that. So much time without her had given him plenty of time to practice.

So when a glowing, silvery white salamander scuttled across the grass, up his legs, around his chest and perched on his shoulder to whisper in his ear, he didn’t move a muscle. 

“I trusted you,” it whispered in Jo’s voice. “You _bastard_ , you said you chose _me_. But you _lied_ ,” her salamander snarled. He’d never seen a salamander snarl before.

Jo’s patronus wound its way down and across the grass to Fred to deliver a much less threatening message, one that exuded calm and poise, reassuring words like “We’re safe.” before fading. 

Marcus slipped his wand into his hand and very carefully cast a Patronus charm, he didn’t know how to send messages but hopefully this would be enough. He watched as Fred did the same.

The Leaky Cauldron:

Jo and Leili got their assurance that everyone was ok when a dachshund and a bear materialized in their room. “Marcus Flint’s patronus is a bear, huh?” Leilani said; it was the proverbial elephant in the room. She couldn’t just _not_ say something.

“Shut-up,” Jo said, completely not having this conversation.

“You know, it’s said that frequently the memories used to conjure a patronus largely revolve around the person the caster is in love with...” 

Jo grabbed a pillow to launch at Leili.

“Ok, ok! I’m sorry! I was just trying to help!” She’d raised her arms to protect herself from the imminent _smack_ that never came. Instead Jo dropped the pillow and grabbed at Leili’s hand. 

Leili laughed at Jo’s sudden distraction, “What?”

Jo held Leili’s hand up, palm out, “Where did _this_ come from?” 

Leili suddenly stopped laughing. There was a ring on her finger. She hadn’t arrived at the wedding with a ring on her finger. When did it get there, how did she not _notice_? “I—I don’t know, no, no, wait, hang on.” She pulled her hand in closer to her face. “That’s my gramma’s. _Why am I wearing my Gramma’s engagement ring_? _How_ am I wearing—?”

“You know what I think this means?”

“Don’t you dare say it,” Leili said, jabbing a finger at Jo, the light setting the ring all a sparkle. It was very distracting.

“You got engaged and you didn’t even realize it! You got _engaged_!”

“In the middle of a _war_.”

“Better now than never. It’s so sparkly!” It really was. It was a plain white band with a single round diamond and two tiny pink sapphires on either side. 

It was her mom’s mother’s ring and she couldn’t figure out how Fred had gotten it, let alone gotten it on her finger without her noticing. It hadn’t been there before the Lynx had crashed the wedding, she was sure of it; Fred’s hand had been on her shoulder blade the whole time anyway, nowhere near her hand. 

“I’m gonna kill him,” Leili said, flopping backwards on the bed, the light catching the sparkles in her dress.

“Don’t you dare!”


	125. Marked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sat on this chapter for so long. I wanted it but I'm new to writing bad guys (partly why I wanted this chapter) so I wasn't sure what to say. Finally I took one of Hitler's speeches and I took part of a speech from The Master (Buffy the Vampire slayer) and smooshed them together. Ended up working pretty well, I think. Not my most original work, maybe but hey.

August 2nd, 1997

Malfoy Manor

\--

The day following the successful infiltration of the Weasley wedding, Marcus stood before his Dark Lord. They stood in the middle of the Malfoy foyer, surrounded by the Death Eaters. His parents were there, stoic and silent. They had been planning this day for years; it was only right he join their ranks! They had been so angry when Dumbledore had held him back from graduation for “subpar NEWT scores”. 

Marcus had thus far failed his primary mission: infiltrate the Alliance. But Voldemort was less angry than expected, instead of winding up dead—which Marcus had fully expected—he was being marked today as one of the trusted ones. Such utter pomp and circumstance.

The Death Eaters stood at attention while their Dark Lord spoke, “A year of world-historical events is ending and an era of great change is approaching. You work and fight today not only for yourselves but for the future! You fight for the generations to come, to rid the world of the filth that forces us to hide. Just as great wizards of years long gone built and defended the world, so too must we. 

“I have not sought war. On the contrary! I have done everything within my power to avoid such an outcome. But I would forget my responsibility if I were to do nothing despite the realization that conflict had become unavoidable. They have put us down. Many of us have lost our way; they will share in the fate of those who defy us. But despair is for the weak, and where they are weak, we will stand strong! Where they weep we will rejoice, where they bleed, we will grow greater! With these daring actions, we will purify the race of Wizards forever!”

Marcus kept his face appropriately blank as Voldemort turned now and addressed him, “You have done well; everything is in place. When tonight’s work is done, you will be a mighty ally to me. I know you will not disappoint me and you have served me well thus far; for that, you will be rewarded. You have gained the trust of the Mudblood Seer, and you will lead her and all who follow her to their doom! After tonight, you shall walk the earth and the stars themselves will hide!”

Marcus fought the urge to frown, _how_ exactly had he gained Jo’s trust? She was more pissed than ever! If there was any chance of getting out of this alive, she just might kill him herself. And he’d deserve it.

They led Marcus to the dining room where he sat in one plush chair and laid his left arm on the table, his sleeve pushed up to show the bare skin of his forearm. A dirty, bedraggled person was put in the chair across from him. Inks and needles appeared on the table. He could see the Malfoys trying not to squirm at the thought of their dining table being used for this. 

As Jo’s shoulder blades had been cleaned and shaved, so too was Marcus’ arm. He’d wanted to tell her. He’d wanted to tell her for more than a year now, but he was a dirty coward and he hadn’t done it. No one had outright threatened her, not in the way he'd expected. They didn’t say do this or she dies, no, they dangled her in front of him and said ‘you can keep seeing her, it’s ok! We want you to, and then we want you to tell us everything she tells you. She thinks she’s sneaky, but we know she helps Harry Potter. She _loves_ you, she’ll tell you their plans. She’ll tell you everything. If you tell us everything, we’ll make sure you can keep her when it’s over.’ _Keep her_ , like a pet. Jocelyn was no one’s pet.

The look on her face when he’d gone to her with the mask was everything he’d been afraid of. Fear. Anger. Betrayal. Disgust. Disgust was probably the worst of them. He'd broken her heart to protect her but in so doing, he’d broken his own. 

A blue-purple stencil was transferred to his skin and though the artist was terrified, their hand was steady as they touched the needle to the stencil and began to create the tattoo that would set him apart for the rest of his life. 

There would be no more weddings with Jocelyn, no more Quidditch and no going back. He was Marked now, a Death Eater forever and always. 


	126. Cheer up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the writing of this, I learned Immaculate Conception doesn’t mean what I thought it means! Good thing I’m not Catholic.

November 15th, 1997

Post-Hogwarts

\--

“Today on Potterwatch we are joined by guests Callisto and Echo. Welcome, Ladies!”

“Hello Rapier,” Echo greeted.

“ _Rodent,”_ Callisto coughed.

“It’s Rapier.”

“Really? I thought your name was Rodent?”

“Echo, can’t you control her?”

“Callisto, be nice. We’re here for a reason, not for you to tease Rapier.”

“I thought I could do both,” Callisto retorted.

“Sorry, I tried,” Echo told him with an almost audible repressed grin.

“Not very hard,” Rapier (coughcough _Rodent_ ) replied, feigning hurt.

“What can I say? She’s inconceivably uncontrollable. Couldn’t do it if I tried.”

“So, what can you tell us?” Saint asked.

“Well, we’ve found one more use for Rita Skeeter’s book on Dumbledore. Booster seats! Is your kid too short to see over something? Just stick this volume under their tush and voilà!” Callisto said with a flourish.

“They also make excellent step stools!” Echo added in cheerfully. “On a more serious note: if you find yourself in trouble with Dementors and you can’t cast a Patronus, don’t panic, there is a simple solution that should buy you enough time to get away.”

“Cheering charms! Dementors will be confused by this charm for a short while, so be sure to get out while the getting is good!” Callisto finished. 

“Now, that doesn’t mean stop practicing your Patronus and rely on the cheering charm, because only a Patronus will protect you completely,” River said before they went off script.

There was a rustle as Saint narrated, “Rapier has slid out of his chair and onto one knee. He takes Echo’s fingers in his…”

“Fr—” she began. She tried again “Fr—” She rolled her eyes at herself. “Rapier, what’re you doin’?” Echo asked through a confused smile.

“When I gave you this ring, I didn't get the chance to ask you the question that goes with it.”

“We _were_ a little busy.” 

Callisto chimed in, “Weddings and patronuses and Death Eaters. Oh, my!” They ignored her, but that was ok, this was their moment. “We assure you, folks, this is very real.”

“On one knee, Rapier takes her hands and says…” River told their listeners.

“Echo, if you want a big wedding, I will Full-Body bind Mum to keep her out of the way. We will not invite Aunt M, that bespectacled beetle, or anyone else like them. Or, we could just go. You and me, right now. What do you say?”

“She’s nodding now,” Callisto said and Echo laughed, realizing that she really needed to _say_ yes.

So she did, “Yes, absolutely, yes!”

A ripple of applause went through Callisto, Saint and River.

Saint closed the broadcast, “We’re not sure when we’ll be back but you can be sure we will be, so keep spinning the dials and the next password is Peverell. That’s all for today’s special edition of _Potterwatch_ , keep your chins up and keep each other safe.”

After the show, Fred and Leilani had chat about the ring he’d slipped onto her finger at his brother’s wedding reception. He explained that he’d written her parents about his intentions and her mother had sent back the ring and its matching band. She declared with a grin that she would kill her parents the next time she saw them as she’d always said she didn’t want them to know she was getting married before she knew.

He and George had spent their pre-Hogwarts years learning Muggle Magic, training how to slip handcuffs and pick locks and pockets. He’d slipped the ring on her finger in the confusion before she and Jo had Apparated away. He was perfectly serious about it—as if the on-air proposal hadn’t been a clue—and Jo delighted in detailing the discovery, much to Leili’s joy and mortification.

After the broadcast, Leili called her sister and had her meet the five of them at a nearby Muggle courthouse and to bring her the fanciest thing in the closet. “I’m getting married!” she squealed.

An hour and a half later, in slacks and a fancy dinner jacket, Fred stood under a be-flowered arch in front of an officiant, as a recorded organ struck up the march.

First down the aisle in jeans and a t-shirt was Jo, hands full of a ring bearer’s pillow. Next, escorted by her sister, came Leili in an off-white dress that glittered in the light, her mother’s veil settled over her hair and face.

This ceremony was just for them, one sibling and one friend apiece. No parents, nothing fancy; just them. 

They would do it again, later. 

After the war. 

If they survived.

Kanani took Fred’s hand and pressed her sister’s into it before taking her place beside Saint as the four of them sat in a semi-circle before the arch.

The officiant spoke, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the wedding of Fred and Leilani. The wedding ring is a symbol of unity, a circle unbroken, with neither beginning nor end. Today, Fred and Leilani give and receive these rings as demonstrations of their vows to make their life one, to work at all times to create a love that is whole and unbroken, and to love each other without end. Do either of you know of any legal reason that you should not be married, today?”

“I do not.”

“I do not.”

“If anyone has any objections, speak them now, or forever hold your peace.”

No one spoke and the officiant continued, “Fred Weasley, do you take Leilani Akina to be your wife? Do you promise you will love her, comfort her, honour and protect her, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.”

“And do you, Leilani Akina take Fred Weasley to be your husband? Do you promise you will love him, comfort him, honour and protect him, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.”

“Do you, the families and friends of Fred and Leilani _,_ support and uphold them in their marriage, now and in the years to come?”

“We do.”

“Fred and Leilani join hands and make your vows.”

Fred took the ring from Jo and recited, “Before these witnesses, I vow to love you and care for you as long as we both shall live. I take you, with all your faults and strengths, as I offer myself to you with all my faults and strengths. I will help you when you need help, and will turn to you when I need help. I choose you as the person with whom I will spend my life. Lei, I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife.” He slipped her grandmother’s wedding band onto her finger, settling it against the engagement ring.

Leili took the matching ring from George and began, “Before these witnesses, I vow to love you and care for you as long as we both shall live. I take you, with all your faults and strengths, as I offer myself to you with all my faults and strengths. I will help you when you need help, and will turn to you when I need help. I choose you as the person with whom I will spend my life. Fred, I take you to be my lawfully wedded husband.” She slid her grandfather’s wedding ring onto his finger, giving his hands a little squeeze.

“Fred and Leilani, in so much as the two of you have agreed to live together in Matrimony, have promised your love for each other by these vows, I now declare you to be Husband and Wife. Congratulations, you may kiss your bride.”

Cheers erupted from the small congregation as Fred lifted the front of the veil and kissed his bride.

The judge closed the book and followed the procession out of the little chapel where hugs were exchanged and the new couple headed off to a little room in a nearby hotel that their guests had booked for them.

Leili couldn’t stop giggling as Fred led her by the hand through the lobby and up to their room. As soon as the door closed behind them, Leili wrapped her arms around his neck and he lifted her off her feet and kissed her soundly. “I love you,” she said into his lips.

“I love you,” he said, hugging her close as he carried her to the bed, giddy over their elopement and their quasi-wedding night. He dropped them on the bed, where they stayed, grateful for the chance to pretend for a few hours that the world wasn’t falling down around their ears.

She pulled back to look in his face, stroking his freckled cheek adoringly. “So this is probably the wrong time to ask, but how do you feel about babies?”

He quirked a charming grin at her, “I’ve got two younger siblings, I’m good with babies.”

“I’m the youngest so I’ve got no experience with them. But do you _want_ them?”

“You’re not pregnant are you?” he asked, half seriously.

“Not unless it’s a virginal conception, dummy,” she snorted. “…I just…” she sighed, free hand going comb back through her hair. “I love you, Fred, and I’m glad we did this, y’know, getting married now, even if it _is_ going to piss our parents off royally… But… with everything happening…”

Fred figured out what she was trying to say, “You’re scared,” he realized.

“Is that terrible of me?” she asked, looking away.

He ran a hand over her cheek, bringing her face back to meet his eyes, “If it’s terrible of you, then it’s terrible of me, too. Especially now, when we don’t know what’s going to happen. We might, neither of us, survive this war. That’s part of why I asked you to marry me when I did, I don’t want to lose you and live the rest of my life regretting that we didn’t get to have at least this much time. So, no babies. No babies until this is over and we're both ready.”

Tears pricked at Leilani’s eyes, she pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. “I love you, Fred Gideon Weasley.”

“I love you too, Leilani Catherine Akina.”

“Ah-ah, It’s Akina-Weasley now!” She teased, tears slipping down her cheeks. 

Fred laughed and swiped the tears away with his thumbs, “Right!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Weddings! I love Weddings! Drinks all around!"


	127. Escape

March 23rd, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--

Jo poked her big furry head around a tree; she had the perfect view of the trio’s camp from here, with Leili backing her up from the sky. Yesterday, they’d been waiting tables and cooking the few meals patrons of the Hog’s head ordered—Jo did most of the cooking while Leili did most of the baking. They could each do both, but things always took longer if they switched. Today, they were sitting in a forest, staring at a tent. Aberforth was kind enough to let them out on these excursions, he could sometimes hear things through the mirror that was the mate to Harry’s broken one. 

The trio hadn’t set up their enchantments, how lazy of them. They’d found the kids via tracking charm, it had taken them about half the day to pin them down but they finally had and she could _just_ hear the current airing of Potterwatch. They had Lupin and Shacklebolt as guests today. It had been fun, being on air like that, even if there hadn’t been much to contribute at the time. Now that she thought about it, Fred and Leili had been married about four and a half/five months now. She sighed, how time flies when you’re being hunted by a megalomaniac…

The lights going out in the tent drew her out of her thoughts; maybe they were going to bed? And then the snatchers arrived. Jo groaned to herself and waited to see if the kids could get themselves out of this.

They couldn’t. 

Hermione watched the large bear barreling towards the snatchers, swiping furiously at them with large paws. They had accidentally called the Snatchers upon themselves when Harry used Voldemort’s name; old habits die hard.

“What the bloody hell is that?!” Ron cried as he saw the bear.

“ _That_ is a bear, Ronald.” Hermione told him.

“But what’s it doing _here_?!” 

_Saving your asses._ Jo wanted to say. She could hear them quite easily from where she was. She could also hear Leilani’s furious chirping and squawking as she tried to get their attention. They were completely ignoring her.

“Well, we _are_ in the woods,” Hermione told him reasonably.

“Yowch!” Harry yelped, shaking his hand and shoving the webbing between his finger and thumb in his mouth. “It bit me!” He said, gesturing to a small green bird Hermione recognized as a member of the parrot family.

“It bit me!” The bird mimicked, flapping around their heads.

“It can talk!” Ron said in no small surprise.

“It?!” The bird cried. “She! Not _it_!”

“Of course she can talk Ronald, she’s a parrot,” Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. 

“Lorikeet!” The little bird argued. 

“But they’re just mimicked words, she doesn’t understand anything she says,” Hermione said matter-of-factly.

Suddenly the bear roared.

“Run away!” the bird told them, taking Hermione’s sleeve and tugging. 

The three weren’t listening and she squawked her annoyance. Jo let out another loud roar and the snatchers scurried off like the rats they were, but they would be back. Jo turned and upon seeing that Harry, Ron and Hermione were still there despite Leili’s best efforts—which included everything but shifting into her human skin—Jo turned and lumbered towards them, wearing her best murder face. 

“Run!” Leili told them.

Cowed by the bear, Harry decided now was a really good time to run. “I think we’d better listen to her, Hermione!” They hesitated for only a second longer before grabbing most of their stuff and running. 

Leilani flew ahead of them with Jo running behind to keep them on course. While Jo had stayed near the kids to keep an eye on them, Leilani had flown around looking for safe hiding places in case of emergency. 

Jo chased them right into a cave before giving them a definite nod and a snort as if to say, “Now, stay there,” before she settled herself at the mouth of the cave. 

“Is that bird safe with that bear?” Harry asked as Leili settled herself on Jo’s head.

Hermione watched carefully as the bear made no move to eat the bird, “Looks like it.”

As the night wore on, the soft breathing of the bear told the trio their savior and captor had fallen asleep so they pulled the invisibility cloak over themselves as Harry cast “ _Muffliato_ ”, so the bear and bird would not hear them leave. 

If the trio had been paying attention to detail, they’d have caught a shimmer of gold across Jo’s upper back. If they’d been paying attention, they’d have noticed that the shimmer of gold was shaped like a Thunderbird and if they’d been paying attention they’d have remembered a girl with that exact tattoo had been at Dumbledore’s funeral. But, they weren’t paying attention; they were too busy trying to come up with a way to escape.

They didn’t know that when the girls had chosen the cave earlier, they had also placed every protective enchantment over it that they knew. So they set off through the forest back towards their tent—which, they would soon find, was being staked out by the Snatchers. Hermione had barely enough time to cast a stinging hex on Harry’s face before they were captured.


	128. Rescue Mission

March 24th, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--

The girls woke after midnight to find their charges missing. They hurried back to the campsite. Their camp was still there but they were nowhere to be seen. They packed up the camp as quickly as possible and Apparated back to the Hog’s Head where Dobby was waiting.

“Dobby! Do you know where they went?” They had a tracking spell hidden amongst Hermione’s things, but everything had been abandoned when the kids had disappeared so it wouldn’t do any good. Jo planned to have words with them when this whole mess was over.

“Yes, Miss. Snatchers took them. Took them to Dobby’s old masters, Miss.”

“Alright, Dobby, we need to get in there, but as quietly as possible. Can you take us in directly to where they’re keeping the kids?” Jo asked.

“No, Miss, Dobby doesn’t know where in the manor they are, Miss.”

“Alright that’s ok. How about—how about Draco’s room? Could you get us in there? From there we can figure it out,” Leili said.

“I may have a better idea,” Jo said slowly, trying to let the thought fully form in her mind. “The Malfoy’s have some sort of cellar, right Dobby?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“That’s where they’re most likely to keep prisoners. If you can drop us in the cellar, I think that’s the best way to go.”

“And if they’re not in the cellar?” Leili asked.

“Then we may have to re-think this a little bit. But logically speaking, I think they will be. It makes the most sense.”

Dobby took their hands and popped them straight into the cellar. It was dark and dank and there wasn’t a bottle of wine in sight.

Out of the darkness came a soft, dreamy voice. “Hello Mama Bear, hello Little Bird. I’m afraid you’ve missed tea, but if you wait a little longer, they’ll be serving gruel for lunch,” Luna said, stepping out of the shadows.

“Dobby!” Harry cried, never happier to see the elf.

“Sounds delightful, Luna," Jo said, "but fortunately we’re not staying and neither are you. C’mon, we’re busting you out.”

“Where’s Hermione?” Leili asked after a quick head count.

“Upstairs,” Ron hissed. This was confirmed by a sharp scream somewhere above their heads.

“I’ll get her,” Leili did her best disillusionment spell, crossed her fingers and her toes and gave Dobby her hand. Dobby popped her out of the cellar and dropped her into the grand room above, not bothering to fully materialize before he let go. 

In the cellar, Ollivander asked, “How did you know where to find us?”

“Well, luckily for you Ollie, Harry here—hello again, by the way,” Jo said as she severed the ropes on Harry and Ron’s wrists. “Harry here has a habit of making friends in unexpected places.” 

Harry cocked his head, Dumbledore had once said almost exactly the same thing.

Upstairs Hermione screamed and a mad shrieking followed.

“Draco! Bring me the goblin!” Bellatrix ordered when Hermione told her the Gryffindor sword was a fake.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Stand back! Line up against the back wall,” Draco said from the doorway of the cellar. 

“Draco, what are you doing?” Jo asked quietly, “You aren’t really going to try and go up against us are you?” Her faith in Slytherins was a bit shaken right now, what with her boyfriend being a Death Eater and all. “Did we teach you _nothing_ at Hogwarts?”

“Don’t try anything, or-or I’ll-I’ll kill you!” Draco threatened, swinging his wand towards Jo before placing a finger over his lips and lowering his wand. “Do you have a plan?” he whispered, so quietly Harry had to strain his ears. 

“Dobby,” Jo said back, just as quietly. Relief and wariness flooded her body.

“And Granger?”

“Leili.” 

For a flicker of a moment Draco looked reassured, Harry and Ron had absolutely no idea what was going on. Then his face shut down and he pointed to Griphook who shuffled forward.

As soon as Draco and Griphook had gone, there was a loud crack and Dobby reappeared beside his friend. 

“Meet me at the top of the stairs in ten seconds,” Dobby said as he took Ollivander and Luna by the hand and Apparated them to the safety of Shell cottage, Ron having quickly rattled off the address.

Upstairs, Leili, a human chameleon, was sitting beside Hermione, whispering into the girl’s ear, “It’s ok, I’m going to get you out of here, just hang on a little longer.” One hand stroked the side of Hermione’s face, while the other charmed her to be feather-light. 

Hermione sobbed loudly to cover Leili’s whispers—not that she was entirely acting when she did so; she’d been tortured via Cruciatus Curse and now had a word carved into her arm that throbbed painfully with every heartbeat.

Wormtail went down to fetch Harry for the en route Dark Lord. Jo retreated to the shadows and Wormtail tried to strangle Harry; he’d ended up strangling himself instead. A life for a life, his debt was—unintentionally—repaid. 

When, scant seconds later, Jo came barreling up the stairs in bear form, the prisoners followed close behind.

Dobby returned and, in one smooth movement Leilani scooped Hermione up and ran. 

Hermione wrapped both arms as tightly around Leili’s neck as she could. Her legs wrapped around the left side of Leilani’s waist were awkward but allowed Leili to run easier than if they’d been crossed around her hips like a child going for a piggyback ride. She could feel Leili’s left arm wrapped around her waist, adding a band of support. It felt weird to be carried by someone both shorter then herself and effectively invisible—it looked even stranger.

In a demonstration of talent or insanity Leili didn’t know she possessed, she unwrapped her arm from Hermione’s waist, saying, “Don’t let go.” 

Hermione’s grip tightened. 

The timing had to be absolutely perfect, and it was. Leili slapped her hand into Griphook’s as she ran by, swinging him up and around and behind where he grabbed onto Hermione’s upper arms, his feet braced on Hermione’s legs.

The two groups met on either side of Dobby and everybody grabbed someone’s hand, but Bellatrix was screaming in rage now, she hurled her silver dagger and they vanished, but so did the blade.

“Well, _that_ was a trip!” Jo panted as they landed on the safety of the beach.

“Agreed. Everyone’s alright, nobody got splinched?” Leili said, giving everyone a cursory once over, gently setting Hermione down in the sand. This was a bit trippy as she was still disillusioned, so they could only just see her blurred outline when she moved.

Then they noticed Dobby and the world fell silent. The little elf had Bellatrix’s blade in his chest and he swayed where he stood. 

“Harry...Potter…”


	129. Drowning their Sorrows

April 28th, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--

“Harry… Potter…” Dobby died and suddenly everyone was crying. 

Luna slid his green eyes shut saying, “Now he looks like he could be sleeping.” She was sweet like that. 

“We need to bury him. Without magic.” Harry acquired a garden spade from Bill and dug Dobby a nice grave between two small bushes at the end of the garden. As Harry dug he came to the decision to abandon the search for Hallows and focus on the Horcruxes.

“C’mon Jo, there’s got to be a flower shop in town,” Leili said, taking Jo’s hand. Flower shopping would do well to get their minds settled, while still doing something productive and it would keep them out of Harry’s way. Sometimes she wondered if they were doing that boy any good or if all their meddling was for naught.

The girls trudged up to the cottage and asked about the town. Fleur offered to take them. They dropped the kids’ things beside the door and Apparated to Tinworth where Fleur found a sweet smelling flower shop. The shop keeper created a bouquet of bright pink and clean white Alliums, fire-orange poppies, soft purple sage, pale green Lady’s mantle and some ornamental grasses, all tied together with a black ribbon. 

Flowers bought, Jo and Leili Apparated directly to the Leaky Cauldron while Fleur Apparated back to the cottage. There she found Harry carving a stone to mark Dobby’s grave. When he was finished, she placed the bouquet in a jar of water and set it beside the headstone so it could be seen without blocking the inscription.

In the Cauldron, Leili looked at Jo, “Are you ok?”

“I’ll be dandy as soon as I get drunk enough to forget today happened.”

Leili sighed; she could break her no-alcohol-ever rule for one night and lend her company to Jo or…

“Go,” Jo said, nursing a Firewhisky. “I can tell you want to. So go. I’ll be ok.”

“Are you sure? I feel kinda bad for wanting to leave…”

“I think I want to be alone right now, anyway. Go. Go find Fred, you need to tell him Ron is safe.” Jo pushed down hard on the wave of jealousy that flared up, the kernel of resentment. It wasn’t Leilani’s fault for wanting to go see Fred—for god’s sake he was her _husband_. But she was still a little jealous that Leili preferred to hang out with him while Jo got drunk. The logical part of her brain reminded her that Leili didn’t like it when people drank around her. Reminded her that it made Leili profoundly uncomfortable. That sometimes people needed a different kind of company. A different kind of comfort.

But still, they’d been together for so long, it was hard to share sometimes. And it was hard to look at Fred and Leili and not be reminded of herself and Marcus and all the things that could have been, the things that might have been, _should_ have been. So, yes, she wanted to be alone. She wanted to mourn the loss of Marcus and Dobby alone.

Leili sighed again. “Ok,” she said, wrapping a hug around Jo’s shoulders, “you call me if you need me.” 

While Jo began to drown her sorrows in alcohol, Leili set off down the cobblestoned road. Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes was a little more than halfway down the alley, west of the Cauldron. So she walked until she caught sight of her favorite orange building. She opened the door and stepped inside.

“Hullo, Can I—” The shop girl stopped as she recognized Leilani. “Oh, it’s you! Mrs. We—er…” Verity knew Leilani was married to Fred, and frequently had to be stopped from calling her _Mrs. Weasley_. George had cracked up the first time she’d done it. Leili just cringed and was unnecessarily reminded why she had hyphenated her last name. “Um, The Mister Weasley’s are out right now.”

Leilani smiled wanly at the bright and bubbly girl, “Thank you, Verity. Will you let them know I’m here when they get back?”

Verity nodded. 

Leili trudged up the stairs and went straight for Fred’s room. She shut his door behind her and collapsed on to the bed. She picked up his pillow and dropped it over her face to wait. She must have fallen asleep because she woke to the feeling of the bed shifting beside her. 

The pillow was lifted gently off her face, “You alive under there?” Fred’s voice asked softly.

Leili held two thumbs up, but kept her eyes closed. She felt the mattress shift again as he leaned in to kiss her. She twined one hand through his hair.

“So what did you do today?” he murmured against her lips.

“Hmmm,” she exhaled, opening her eyes. “Let me think… Oh, I saved your little brother from the Death Eaters and then watched Harry bury Dobby. Today _sucked_.”

Abruptly, he pulled back to look into her face. “Ron’s okay?”

Leili nodded, “I’m sorry, I buried the lead. Ron’s ok, Harry and Hermione too. They’re with Bill and Fleur.”

Fred wilted in relief, burying his eyes in the crook of her neck, “Thank you.”

Tears pricked at her eyes, no one had ever _thanked_ them for this before.

Fred left her side to hurry to find George. “George! George! Leilani saw Ron. He’s ok!”

Relieved, George wrapped his twin in a bear hug and told him, “Give that wife of yours a big kiss for me.” 

Fred practically flew back up the stairs to her. After locking the door, he gave her that big kiss. She tasted like chocolate. She must have snagged a piece from his bedside table while he was gone. Eyebrow quirked he pulled back, leaving her looking surprised.

“Oh, young maiden!” he whispered, savoring as the look on her face slid from vaguely to fully confused. “For the thrill on your tongue of stolen sweets, you’ll have to pay the fee, tangled in the winding sheets!”

Leilani blinked, the wheels turning behind her eyes. It took her embarrassingly long to figure it out, but once she did, she burst out laughing. The phrase was from a song in _The Phantom of the Opera_. She had no idea how he knew it or how he knew she loved the play or if he knew she had loved it since she was eight years old. 

She sang back, “No thoughts within her head but thoughts of joy~. No dreams within her heart but dreams of love~!” She was no Sarah Brightman—who originated the role in London—and she was flat on her back, laid out like Fred’s personal feast, so she didn't have the lung power either way for that stupid high note at the end, but she did her best and was rewarded when Fred’s grin turned delightfully wicked.

She paid her fee, happily and drowned her sorrows in winding sheets and bare skin.


	130. Sneaking into Gringotts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve got some techie stuff in here and I tried to keep in mind the anti-tech of the wizarding world while working it in so it’s got some rules for using tech in magical environments. I’m bending canon, hopefully not breaking it outright.

May 1st, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

—

Two days after rescuing the golden trio, plus Luna, Olivander and Griphook, there was a knock at the girls’ rented door. 

Jo sleepily opened the door, “Luna? What are you doing here?”

“Harry, Ron and Hermione planned with Griphook all night and set off for Gringotts just after dawn. They’re going to break in. They think there’s something inside that will help defeat You-Know-Who.”

“Thank you, Luna!” Jo hurried back inside, got dressed and ran down the stairs. She had not expected to find Dean also waiting downstairs. He and Luna were going to Ollivander’s to pick through the wreckage and salvage anything they could, wands hopefully. Jo dug her Nokia cellphone out of her pocket and dialed the only number on speed dial: Leilani’s. They’d bought the phones a few weeks after they graduated, inexpensive but sturdy with a cheap plan. It was a handy way of contact in case they got separated. 

The phones didn’t work in high magic areas so using them inside Hogwarts was out, inside the Wheezes was iffy, inside the Hog’s Head was out, on the street was ok. If Leili tried to use the phone in the Wheezes’ main area, it would just fritz out and start smoking—the girls had tested this and had to go back to the phone shop pleading confusion and crisis. They’d been lucky; the shop assistant had never seen anything like it and therefore was easily talked into a ‘defects in materials and workmanship’ conclusion. The Wheezes had an old fashioned, rotary-dial landline that the twins spent their free time tinkering with, they hadn’t gotten it to function yet but they kept trying.

“C’mon, c’mon, answer your phone…!” Jo pleaded as she ran through the pub, out the door and down the cobbled street. She activated the protean charm that linked her necklace to Leilani’s bracelet, but Leili took it off to sleep.

“You’ve reached Leilani Akina, I can’t come to the phone right now so leave a message at the beep, thank you!” _Beep!_

Jo grunted her frustration; either Leili didn’t hear it or the air was too clogged with magic for it to even ring. She picked up the pace from a run to a dead sprint, racing down the lane until she reached the Weasley’s shop. She wove her way through the few people in the store, ducking past the assistant and hurrying up the stairs, taking two at a time. She pounded her fist on the door marked ‘Fred’. 

“LEILI!” she shouted. “OI! LEI-LI!” No answer. Leili could sleep like a rock under normal circumstances—plus, unbeknownst to Jo, the room was cloaked in silencing charms so the occupants could not hear or be heard from inside, George’s room was the same. “ _Alohamora,_ ” she said, pointing her wand at the lock, hearing it slide out of position before bursting through the door. The door swung open, slamming against the wall.

Leili sat up, pulling the sheet to her chest and crying indignantly, “ _JO_! What the hell?!”

“They’re going to rob Gringotts!” She half shouted, kicking a bra onto the bed from the floor.

“ _Fuck_!” Leili swore, throwing herself out of Fred’s comfortable embrace, both of them now abruptly awake and turned off of doing what they had been doing. Best friends bursting through locked doors had a sobering effect, like a bucket of cold water being doused over their heads. “I’ll fly ahead, see if they’re even there. _What_ do these three stupid-heads think they are doing?” She pulled on Fred’s shirt and some shorts—she was at least _clothed_ if not actually _dressed_. She tucked her wand into garter-like bands of lace around her right thigh. She'd come up with the unconventional holster while trying to figure out where to keep her wand in a dress with no pockets.

“Saving the world, probably,” Jo said before making her way downstairs. 

Leilani gave Fred a harried kiss and an even more hurried explanation, “Sorry, Honey, I have to help Harry again!” before she cloaked herself in feathers, leaving phone and bracelet behind. She flew into the bank just in time to see Bellatrix, who she was pretty sure was not _actually_ Bellatrix, and an unknown wizard disappear into the back. Leili turned around and met Jo outside.

“Human or bear?” Jo asked. If the kids were obvious she could go in as a human, if they had already gotten past the goblins they would need brute force to follow. 

“Bear,” Leili echoed. 

Without another word, Jo shifted and then ran full tilt boogie into the bank, pushing past goblins and following Harry’s scent. Jo climbed into one of the carts and clapped her paws around the brake, sending it hurtling after Harry who, now that they were no longer in public, had taken off his cloak. 

The two carts sped through a sudden waterfall that stripped them all of their disguises, including animagus forms. With a _screeeech_ and a stomach turning flip, the carts dumped their passengers sending them into a free fall towards a very hard ground. Hermione stopped them from going _splat!_ about two feet from the ground. 

Everyone briefly stared at Leilani’s unconventional outfit, before Griphook—the only one unfazed—said, “They know we’re here. They’ve set the defenses against us.”

“Then get going!” Jo cried. 

“The dragon has been trained to expect pain when it hears the clackers…” Griphook said and before anyone could come up with a better idea, out of the bag came the clackers. 

The device made an awful noise that hurt everyone’s ears, but ultimately did the job they were designed to do, the dragon got out of the way. They hurried past with Griphook and Bogrod whose hand Harry placed on the vault door to unlock it. 

Harry began to describe what they were looking for, a small gold cup among thousands of gold things. 

Griphook warned, “Everything you touch will burn and multiply, but the copies are worthless—and if you continue to handle the treasure, you will eventually be crushed to death by the weight of expanding gold!”

As proof, Hermione yelped as she accidentally bumped into a piece of the horde and got burned for her carelessness. 

“Okay, don’t touch anything! Just look around! Remember, the cup’s small and gold, it’s got a badger engraved on it, two handles...” Harry's wandlight passed over shields and goblin-made helmets set on shelves rising to the ceiling. Everybody froze where they were and searched, using their own _lumos_ to light the stone room.

“You mean to tell me that we’re looking for _Hufflepuff’s cup_?!” Jo hissed, making the connection before Leili.

“Yes!” Harry replied, forgetting she didn’t know what he did. Higher and higher the beams of wand light went, until suddenly Harry found an object that made his heart skip and his hand tremble. He reached.

“Harry! _Stop_ _moving_!” Jo called over the clattering of gold platters hitting the ground. 

“We could use the sword!” Hermione called, pulling the blade out of her bag, but her reach still wasn’t long enough.

“Hermione, gimme your bag. Hurry!” Hermione tossed the little beaded bag and Leilani caught it. The little Niffler on her ankle reached greedily for the mountain of gold he couldn’t touch.

“How are you going to get up there?” Hermione asked.

“Like this,” she said, shifting. She clasped the bag in her beak and flew, perching on the stone shelf that displayed the cup. She changed back, covered her hands in the fabric of the bag so the drawstring lip hooked over her fingertips and quickly grabbed the cup in both hands, shimmying it down into the body of the bag. 

“You’re animagi! It all makes sense now!” Hermione cried, elated at the epiphany.

Leili drew the string tight and tossed Hermione the bag, “I’m glad. Now, let’s get the hell out of here!”

Once again, Bogrod’s hand was on the door and they spilled out of the vault only to be greeted by goblins and wizards prepared to stop them.

“Stop them! They are thieves!” Griphook called to the other goblins, snatching the sword from Hermione’s hand.

“Get out of here!” Leili shouted as Jo transformed and they both took off towards the goblins and wizards while the kids headed for the dragon. 

Jo knocked the goblins down with great swipes of her paws and Leili stole wands away from the wizards, dropping them in the middle of the treasure pile—joy of having wings. 

Then, realizing they had no way of getting out other than being arrested, which would put a serious damper on their plans, they hurried after the dragon and climbed up.


	131. Explanations

May 1st, 1998

Post Hogwarts

—

When the escaped dragon dropped low over a lake, the five of them jumped from the Dragon’s back, four landing with varying degrees of splash in the frigid water. The dragon drank its fill and took off again, possibly in search of food.

In her human form, Leili met them on the beach and, after a moment, Hermione exclaimed that which she could not remember at Gringotts. “I remember you! You were on the train! You wanted me to kiss Trevor!”

“A. that was Jo,” she pointed, Jo waved. “And B. while I wouldn’t have put it past her, in this case, I think she just wanted to get a reaction. You were so cute.” 

Ron whirled around to look at her, “ _I_ remember _you_ , you were at the Department of Mysteries and you were the ones who stopped Harry and Cedric from meeting You-know-who!”

“Frankly, I’m surprised you remember the Department of Mysteries, Ron,” Harry quipped.

Leilani plunked herself in the sand, rubbing her ankle.

“You ok, Leili?” Jo asked.

“My foot’s fallen asleep, that’s all.”

“Been sitting funny?”

“No, its my Niffler, he’s gotten dizzy.” The little Niffler tattoo was flat on his back trying to snatch the stars circling over-head. 

Jo laughed.

“I _knew_ something wasn’t right, wasn’t normal!” Hermione was saying, “Harry was just _too_ lucky over and over again; especially at the end of the third task, when you two showed up at the entrance to the maze and Marcus Flint attacked Mad-eye. I knew that something really bad had happened in that maze and you stopped it from happening to Harry.”

“Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three times is a conspiracy. We’ve been looking out for you for _years_ ,” Leili admitted.

Jo jumped in before Ron’s eyes could bug out of his head, “Harry, you remember the Grindylow altercation in the black lake in your fourth year? That was me.”

“We were in the Chamber of Secrets with you. We tried to exorcise Riddle; it didn’t really work. We also created the doe that distracted Lupin outside the shrieking shack. Talk about an exercise in fancy spell work!” Leili added. “I should have gotten points for that, it was _hard_!”

“Now, now, we didn’t do for the points, remember?” Jo teased.

Leili waved a hand dismissively, “I know.”

“So, the shoes I saw, the voices I heard in the chamber—that was _you_! _You_ bought me enough time to cast a Patronus to get rid of the Dementors!” He was looking back and forth between them, all the pieces of the last 7 years that had never fit before, falling into place. He turned to Hermione and Ron, “I _told_ you I saw something!”

“Yeah, mate, but you also thought you saw your dad across the lake.” Ron said. “It’s not that we didn’t believe you, we just…”

“Didn’t believe me,” Harry finished meaningfully. Ron looked a little embarrassed. “So, everything we did, we didn’t actually do? You guys did all of it?” Harry said, feeling torn between annoyance that he’d had to go through hell the last 7 years when he didn’t actually have to, because they had done all the work, and relief because now people could stop thinking he was so all fired amazing.

“Well, no… not all of it,” Leili said. 

Five little words and Harry wanted to pound his head against the wall; they were confusing him, first they said they’d helped him through the dangerous days at school and now they were saying they hadn’t.

“Most of the time, we helped with the little stuff,” Leili tried to explain.

“We tried to help with the bigger stuff but you had this _annoying_ little habit of getting yourselves in hot water in _the middle of the night_ ,” Jo said pointedly. They didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish. 

“But if you’ve been helping us this whole time, why didn’t you guys ever get rewarded or anything?” Ron asked.

“We didn’t do it for the points, though it _was_ nice to win the House Cup that one year. After your altercation with the troll, we decided to look after you, lest you get yourselves killed. You three are honorary ‘Puffs, congratulations.” Jo told them.

“Besides, we didn’t _want_ you to know. We wanted as few people to know as possible. It was the only way for _us_ to stay safe. The students in our house didn’t even know what we were up to; all they knew was that I liked to brew potions in our room, well, maybe _liked_ is too strong a word. It was a pain when they blew up. We did actually get rewarded though, after the Tri-Wizard tournament. Dumbledore gave us awards for ‘special services to the school’ and a boatload of points.”

Now Harry had a confession to make, “During the third task, I saw it all happen. I didn’t know that they continued to help, or that they had helped before that, but I recognized them when they showed up for the DA meetings.”

“ _Everybody_ recognized them by that point, mate,” Ron said. 

Everyone had to admit this was true.

“How did you find us?” Hermione asked, Jo grinned and whistled.

“Well, you see, you had a stow away,” Leili said as a familiar Monster Book of Monsters scuttled into Jo’s arms from Hermione’s little beaded bag. “Hermione, meet Spike.”

“He makes a wonderful guard book, though back in 3rd year, he had a tendency to wander off, so we put a tracking spell on him. That way, when he got lost we knew where to find him. We needed to know where you were going to be so that if you got into trouble we could find you. So before the wedding, Leili snuck into the Burrow and swapped books,” Jo said, stroking Spike’s cover.

“That book attacked me!” Ron cried, slightly horrified.

“Yeah, well, he does that. He attacked a Dementor a few years back.”

“I remember that!” Harry said suddenly. “We saw him biting a Dementor’s robe back in our 3rd year! Angelina said you were weird.”

“Fred and George said you were brilliant, but scary…” Ron recalled and a dumb, pleased grin spread across Leili’s face.

“He said that?” she asked, her voice taking on a dreamy tone.

“Focus, Leili, you can snog him later.”

Ron looked at Leili in absolute horror as he thought Jo had meant him.

“Back to how you found us…?” Hermione prompted.

“Snatchers had been spotted in the area, combine that with the knowledge that if it can go wrong it will, and it is _going_ to happen around you three, we took a few days off from work to check up on you. Combine all that with the tracking spell on Spike and we knew pretty much exactly where you were.”

“We followed you for about half a day before you found yourselves in hot water and, well, you know the rest.” Jo shrugged and Harry looked at her, astonished. 

How many times had they saved his life? He was starting to suspect more times than they were willing to tell him. 

“And then Luna came to us when you three _idiots_ decided to rob _the most_ secure bank _in the gods damned world_. We were already in Diagon Alley so finding you was just a matter of following my nose. Bears have _excellent_ tracking abilities, you know. We get you away from the Snatchers but then you just _had_ to go and get yourselves caught. We save you in Malfoy Manor and then you _have_ to go and rob freaking _Gringotts_! Can you please, for more than five minutes, just _stay saved?!_ ”

“What was going on between you and Draco?” Harry asked.

The irritation drained out of her as Jo admitted, “Y’know, for once, I don’t have a good answer to that. He looked _scared_.” 

Draco _was_ scared; he’d been scared since his fourth year. His dad had returned to side of the Dark Lord and in the summer before his sixth year, Draco himself had been inducted into the death squad. He’d accepted it at first, but he knew he was being used to punish his dad and he knew he wouldn’t be able to finish the mission given to him, though he had to try, otherwise his parents were dead.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to you in time to stop Bellatrix from torturing you, Hermione. But at least you got the cup, though you did lose the sword…” Jo apologized.

“You lost the sword?” the boys said together.

“Griphook took it from me,” Hermione explained. “Speaking of Gringotts, you’re animagi, you’re registered, right?”

Leili snorted, “McGonagall would have killed us if we didn’t.”

“Then you could get into real trouble for helping us break in!”

Harry’s scar began to burn, his head felt like it was being cleaved in two with a butter knife. He watched as a semi circle fearfully told Voldemort that Harry and his friends had stolen a small gold cup from the Lestrange’s vault. His fury was great, his fear even greater now he knew that others knew of his secret. With a scream he brought the Elder wand down with a flash a green light. Griphook keeled over sideways, dead. More thoughts and images that weren’t his own flashed through Harry’s head. With a gasp, Harry pulled himself upright. 

“He knows,” his voice sounded strangely low after Voldemort’s screams. “He knows and he’s going to check on the others, and the last one,” he was already on his feet, “is at Hogwarts. I knew it. I _knew_ it!”

Jo and Leili looked at him in confusion, Ron and Hermione with concern.

“We need to get going,” said Harry firmly. He had been hoping to sleep, looking forward to getting into the new tent, but that was impossible now, “Can you imagine what he’s going to do once he realizes the ring and the locket are gone? What if he moves the Hogwarts Horcrux, decides it isn’t safe enough?” 

“But how are we going to get in?”

“Hi, sorry, what’s a Horcrux?” Leili interrupted, the trio seemed to have forgotten that she and Jo were still there.

“We don’t have _time_ to explain!”

“Give us the cliff-notes version,” Jo said.

“The _what?”_

“The one minute version, super simple, what is it, what does it do, why is it important?” Jo explained.

“Horcruxes, they hold a piece of his soul, if we find them and destroy them, then we can kill him.”

“And one’s at Hogwarts, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Get to Hogsmeade, we’ll get you into the castle.” Jo took Leilani’s hand and turned on the spot, Apparating to Hogsmeade just inside the Hog’s Head.

“Well, is it done?” Aberforth asked as Leilani flew to the bedroom she shared with Jo upstairs. She needed to get dressed and she needed to call Fred.

“They’re safe, for now. They’ll be coming here in a minute though.”

Aberforth grunted and jabbed his thumb at the kitchen, “Dinner for the kids.”

“You cooked?” Jo asked. Aberforth never cooked if he could help it, it wasn’t that he was lazy or entitled; he just couldn’t cook worth beans. He’d managed to survive on his own cooking but when the girls began to work for him they took over the making of most meals.

Aberforth grunted again, “House elf named ‘Kreacher’ came by looking for ‘Master Harry’ with a bleedin’ feast. Go on then, Ariana’s waitin’.” 

After sending Artemis with a letter to Fred, Leili slid down the bannister, which only _looked_ rickety as all hell.

They dutifully picked up the trays of food and crossed to Ariana’s portrait, disappearing behind it to deliver food to the waiting students in the Room of Requirement.


	132. Caterwauling Charm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a confrontation I don't think anyone was waiting for...

May 1st, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--  
  
An inhuman scream spilt the air outside the Hog’s Head. Aberforth hurried down the stairs, grabbing Leili’s cat, Morgan, on the way to the door. He opened the door and deposited the feline on the porch moments before the door to the Three Broomsticks burst open and Death Eaters poured out.

Harry Ron and Hermione were safe beneath the cloak, for now. The Death eaters tried everything before summoning the Dementors. A wave of cold washed over the street, sending Morgan into a spitting and hissing fit.

Bursting from a shadowy corner, Harry’s stag patronus galloped down the street, flinging Dementors every which way.

“Potter!” Aberforth called from Harry’s left, “In here, quick!” The three of them hurried through the doorway. “Get upstairs, quick, and keep that cloak on!” Aberforth instructed before he went out into the street and confronted the Death Eaters. 

“If I want to put my cat out I will, and be damned to your curfew!” he spat at the Death Eaters, gesturing to the hissing amber eyed black cat.

“ _You_ set off the caterwauling charm?”

“What if I did? Going to cart me off to Azkaban? Kill me for sticking my nose out my front door? Do it, then, if you want to! But I hope for your sakes you haven’t pressed your little Dark Marks and summoned him. He’s not going to like being called here for me and my old cat, is he, now?” Aberforth taunted, scooping Morgan up and slamming the door, not waiting to hear them argue further. He set Morgan down on the table and patted her head, “Good cat.”

Behind Ariana’s secret tunnel Leili and Jo were checking on the students hiding in the room of requirement. 

“How’s everyone doing?” Jo asked as she and Leili began to set down the dinner dishes. When the girls turned to leave, the door opened and out stepped Neville along with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

“Look who it is! Didn’t I tell you?” Neville called.

“Well, at least it’s nice to know we won’t have to go gallivanting all over the countryside looking for them. Again.” Leili grinned at Jo who nodded her agreement. The girls climbed back through the door and started off down the passage. 

When they returned to the Hog’s head Aberforth grunted, “About time you got back, we’re going to have visitors,” he said it in the way of old men tired of these young things going off for hours at a time, when they’d really only been gone maybe ten minutes, twenty, tops.

“ _Visitors_?” Jo asked incredulously, “Are they _trying_ to get themselves killed?”

“What did you do to my cat?!” Leili shrieked accusatorily when a shivering Morgan jumped into her arms, her fur still spiked with anxiety.

Aberforth declined to answer, saying instead, “They’re Apparating directly into the pub,” he said before disappearing behind the bar and pouring himself a drink before heading back upstairs. He was an old man; he’d leave the young ones to the gathering of fighters.

“There’s no way we can predict where they’re going to land is there?” Leilani asked, eyeing the tables and trying to soothe Morgan.

“Nope,” Jo said, “if they land on the tables we’re going to have a mess to clean up. We may as well move them as best we can, try to prevent it.”

Leili sighed, “Let’s get that out of the way then. Go on up to bed, Mor, I don’t want you to get squished.” She stroked the still-slightly bristled fur and gave her a kiss between the ears before shooing her up the rickety old stairs.

The girls didn’t know the spell used in the Three Broomsticks to stack the chairs so they did it by hand, it was tedious and time consuming, but they didn’t know how long they had to wait until reinforcements started arriving so at least it gave them something to do. They stacked the chairs and pushed the tables out as far from the center as they could.

When the first _pop!_ Arrived Leili sat up so abruptly from where she’d been draped over the bar that she fell off in a tangle of flailing limbs; as she lay there on the floor blinking she heard Jo start to clap and laugh.

“ _That_ was graceful! Are you ok?”

“I’m good!” She called, holding two thumbs up as she pulled herself into a seated position on the floor. “That’s gonna bruise…” She muttered as she climbed back up to her feet before looking around the room for their new arrivals. To her glee and surprise she saw Fred and George, “Fred! George!” she laughed, moving to hug her husband and his brother, now her brother-in-law—a concept she had yet to get used to.

“Hello, _Rodent._ ” Jo greeted with a teasing grin.

“Sorry about running out earlier, you got my message? The kids are ok, they’re at the school right now.” The twins nodded and Fred held out Leili’s clothes, nicely, neatly folded. “Aww, you brought me my things!” she gushed, pecking a quick kiss to his lips. She clasped her bracelet around her wrist and tucked her phone into a pocket before sending her clothes upstairs.

Jo jumped in to keep traffic moving, “Alright, Ariana’s tunnel.” She ushered the twins to Ariana’s portrait, “Go through here and you’ll end up in the Room of Requirement.”

“You coming, Lei?” Fred asked after he stepped through and she didn’t.

“In a while; others are arriving soon. I’m gonna stay with Jo, keep her company. I’ll be along later.” 

Fred nodded, closing the door behind him.

After Fred and George came Lee and Ginny, after Ginny came Cho, then Remus and Tonks, both of whom the girls were very glad to see, congratulations were given and news, and pictures of the baby was received. Person after person was pointed towards Ariana’s secret tunnel and just when they thought they were done, one more pop was heard. 

“Evening, Oliver,” Jo drawled dramatically. 

Oliver’s head snapped in the direction of Jo’s voice. He took an involuntary step back as he scanned the room for Leili. He found her and she met his eyes without hesitation. She gave him a long, measuring look. He could feel the weight of a thousand judgments being passed on his soul and could practically hear the universe telling him he did not measure up. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to measure up _to_ but it didn’t seem to matter in that moment.

“C’mon Oliver, I’ll show you the way. Jo, why don’t you stay here and see if any one else shows up. I’ll meet you on the other side, ‘kay?” Leili crossed the room to Ariana’s portrait again.

Jo quirked an eyebrow, “You sure?”

Leili waved off the concern, she wasn’t really sure why she didn’t just point him in the direction of the tunnel and stick around to wait with Jo but she’d already said she’d go so here she went.

Oliver tentatively followed his ex-girlfriend, passing Jo who whispered, “Say _one_ word about that day, and I’ll kill you myself.” 

She, of course, meant the day she’d set a pack of wild dogs on him. Jo wasn’t worried about Leili finding out that she’d set the dogs on him, she already knew. She just didn’t want her best friend upset over an old wound that Fred had done a magnificent job at soothing away.

“Hurry up, Oliver,” Leili called. Wood tentatively crossed the room to meet her. A minute into the tunnel Leili stopped and groaned, “Oh, just _say_ something would you? The quiet is getting to me.”

Wood chuckled, “Still hate silence, huh?”

“Always and forever.” Silence descended over them again, “Am I going to have to do all the talking?” she demanded.

“I like yer tattoo,” he offered, her Occamy was watching him warily from around her shoulders.

“Thanks,” Leili said, touching the tail with her fingertips.

“…I don’ know what to say to ye that won’ land me wi’ one foo’ in an oopen grave,” he admitted.

“Oh, is that what you’re afraid of?” she laughed quietly at the irony. When they were dating he always thought he knew what to say to her, even if he really didn’t. “I see your predicament. Well. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” 

Wood snorted in disbelief. “How can a wee thing like _you_ protect _me_?”

Leili heard the condescension in his voice and her temper prickled. “Oh shut-up.” 

He obligingly shut up and Leili sang snippets of a pseudo-love song under her breath to herself to prevent the quiet from eating away at her sanity. She hated the too-quiet, when all she could hear was her own pulse and a slight tinnitus in her ears, it made her completely bonkers.

_“I’m your music. I’m your song. Play me time and time again and make me strong. Make me sing, make me sound. Andante, Andante. Tread lightly on my ground._

_Andante, Andante. Oh, please don’t let me down…”_

“I dinna know ye sang,” he said carefully.

“You know, I’ve had this song stuck in my head _all_ day today. It just won’t go away,” she chuckled. Then, more seriously, “…There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Oliver.” 

He took her use of his first name to mean that her temper had faded and they were on friendly terms again, though she sounded almost sad. “Like, why ye doon’t like the quiet?”

“Yes, like that. There are other things too, though. For all the time we spent together, we didn’t actually learn all that much about each other.” 

“How are you?” he asked, it was small talk, something to say when he had nothing else to offer.

“I’m good, Oliver. I’m really good. You?”

“Oh, aye, guid. ...Seeing anyone?”

Leilani whirled around to give him a look. She answered skeptically, “Yes. Actually. I am.”

“Oh? Who? When did you start datin’ him?”

“None of your beeswax,” she snorted.

“Why won’t you tell me?” he pushed.

“As I said, ‘none of your Beeswax’, Oliver,” she enunciated.

“Is ’e better lookin’ than me?”

Her laugh was edged with incredulity, “What’s gotten into you?”

“Is ’e better in bed?”

Leilani turned bright red.

“We never—You and I _never_ —!” she spluttered.

“But you and he did?”

“My love life—my _sex_ _life_ is none of your bloody business so what. The. Fruck,” she blinked mentally at the new word, a combination of frick and its less pg alternative, “makes you think I’m going to answer _that_?” Then it hit her like a ton of bricks falling on her head. “Oh my god, you—! _You’re jealous!_ Oliver, we dated for like six months _four_ _years_ _agoo_ ,” her accent slipped briefly, probably a side effect of talking to him again after so long. 

What had started out as an imitation of his accent but had evolved into something entirely her own. Heard by a Scotsman, her accent would seemingly betray her to be Scots, but would boggle the mind of anyone who tried to guess _where_ in Scotland she was from.

“What makes you _think_ you have the _right_ to be jealous?”

He looked at her and couldn’t swallow his desire. He pushed her into a shadowy corner and captured her pissed off mouth with his. He had always loved it when she was fired up, even if it _was_ in anger. He wedged a knee between her thighs, pinning her against the wall and kissing her soundly.

She managed to stomp on his in-step and push back on his chest, seething. 

“Ah!” he yelled as her heel hit its mark. Gripping his foot, he whispered, “What’s ’e got that I doon’t?”  
  
She practically growled at him as she shoved him away. “I should _fucking_ leave you here for that. Let you find your own way out!” 

She turned around and continued through the dimly lit corridor, talking mostly to herself, letting him scramble to catch up.

“It’s been four years. Four years and you still manage to do this to me. What is _wrong_ with you? UGH!” She pushed her hands through her hair and then spun around, jabbing a finger at him, “I was doing _fine_ , Oliver! I was doing _fine_ and then you waltz back into my life like it’s nothing, like you didn’t break my heart! You know what? You know _why_ he’s different from you? What _he_ has that _you_ don’t? I’ll give you a clue, Oliver: He’s. Not. _You_. _He_ doesn't string me along. _He_ doesn't _goad_ me. _He’s_ sweet to me. We make each other _happy_. Can you honestly say the two of us did that for each other? ’Cause I can’t! He doesn’t fucking _assault_ me. He loves me, you don’t. You never did,” she wiped the traces of him from her mouth.

Taken aback he looked at her anew, she had never sworn around him before. She’d made up words, used child-like alternatives, but always stopped short of actually swearing and now she’d done it twice in ten seconds. And when they’d been dating she’d never stood up to him like this, she’d declined his advances, pushed him off, shoved him away but he couldn’t remember her ever standing her ground like this. She’d obviously grown up since he met her last—in more ways than one.

She muttered angrily to herself, stomping away before she rounding on him again, “…I’m going to ask you something, and it’s horribly trite and cheesy and probably every girl everywhere swears she won’t ask it because, as I said it’s cheesy and trite and overused in movies, but I’m going to ask it anyway. When you asked me out and while we were dating, was any of it real? I don’t mean did you love me because you and I _both_ know you didn’t, but did you ask me out because you liked me or was I just a pawn? Useful until I wouldn’t blindly cave to your whims?” She turned away, heading down the tunnel; she didn’t think she wanted to see his face when he gave his answer.

“What’re you hooping Ah’ll say?”

“I don’t _know_. Why do you think I _asked_? If you say none of it was real, then you’re an ass but if you say some of it was real and it ended up the way it did anyway then… you’re still an ass, actually. But I think… I think if you _were_ just manipulating me the whole time and none of it was real, I think that would be worse because I genuinely liked you and you were just stringing me along. But if some of it was real and you still tried to manipulate me and then you hit me… and now you’re kissing me even though you _know_ I’m seeing someone…” her head was starting to spin with her own logic.

Wood swallowed and would have attempted to answer her but she swung the door to the Room of Requirement open and stepped out before he could. Part of him suspected that even though she’d asked the question, she didn’t entirely want to know the answer. 

One thing was for sure though, before the night was over, he had to apologize for the special kind of hell he had put her through. He had no excuse for it and he hoped that he was a better person now. He also hoped, sincerely, that she had found someone who treated her better than he had.

About a minute behind Leilani and Wood, Jo exited the tunnel in time to hear Fred call, “Welcome back to Hogwarts, Wood,” as he made his way to them with a platter of candied concoctions. “Sweet?”

Oliver reached for an odd rainbow colored toffee when Leili stopped him, “I wouldn’t go for that one. I’d go more for this one.” She pointed to an egg shaped custard cream, “Don’t be fooled by its plain appearance, it’s really quite tasty. Much better then the rainbow toffee.”

He should have been wary of her tone, of how she’d just chewed him out and now was being oddly nice. He should have been, but he wasn’t. Oliver popped the egg treat in his mouth and was mid-way through chewing and agreeing that this treat really was quite enjoyable when his arms began sprouting yellow feathers. 

Leilani was able to contain her laughter until his face morphed into a beak and little yellow feathers grew around it, after that she dissolved into giggles and was counting on Fred to keep her upright, tucked as she was under his arm. Oliver was flapping his wings and squawking at them when Jo joined the crowd.

“Canary crème!” Leili and Jo managed to say together, causing more side-splitting guffaws. 

“Oh these are one of your _best_ gags, boys!” Jo cackled.

Oliver was about three seconds from pecking someone’s eyes out when George stepped in and de-feathered their former Quidditch captain. 

When the laughter had died down Jo looked at the twins and asked, “Did you plan that? ‘Cause if you did…”

“How were we to know our old Quidditch Captain would show up?” George said with an innocent look.

“Yeah, how were we to know?” Fred said with a grin, he now had his revenge on Oliver for robbing him of the opportunity to know Leilani earlier. 

“Confuse, don’t abuse,” had been Leilani’s motto when she and Fred had properly met. For the most part the Wheezes were in line with that, but some of them had just a dash of abuse thrown in, like the ton-tongue toffee or the punching telescope.

Jo looked between the two gleeful faces and made a decision. “You know what? I don’t want to know.”

No longer a giant canary, Oliver looked between Fred and George. He’d been the butt of their practical jokes for years, but he’d forgotten what it had been like after a few years away from them. He was about to say something when he caught the sparkle of a diamond on Leilani’s hand as she wiped tears of laughter off her cheeks.

Then he noticed the way Fred’s arm rested in the curve of her waist, the tips of his fingers buried in her jeans pocket. The hold was… relaxed, comfortable in a way that the two of them had never been. He stared at them as he tried to riddle out what he was missing. And then, almost as though someone had called ‘Knock on Wood’ and walloped him, it hit him; the embrace was intimate.

  
They were dating.

 _Fred_ was the new guy. Of course! He should’ve seen _that_ one coming. He’d known about Fred’s crush on her when he himself had asked her out.

His eyes darted from Fred’s hand to Leilani’s and back again. Another sack of bricks fell on his head. He blurted, “Yer _married?!”_

“Shhhh!” Leili shushed.

“We are,” Fred responded smugly.

“But people don’t know yet, so _ixnay_ on the _arriedmay_!”

Wood blinked blankly at her. “What on the what?” He didn’t speak pig latin; he didn’t even know what pig latin _was_. “Why did ye no’ teill me ye were married?”

“You didn’t ask! You asked if I was seeing someone and I said yes. Besides, it’s not as though it’s _really_ any of your business. And somehow I _doubt_ my marital status would have stopped you from taking advantage.”

“He did what?”

Leili replied in a low voice, “He kissed me, in the passageway. Knew I was seeing someone—didn’t tell him it was you.”

Fred lurched, intent on beating Oliver bloody.

Leili caught him, swinging around to stand in front of him, “No, no, no; don’t kill him. No mauling. Not today.”

“He _kissed_ my _wife_!” Fred hissed.

Oliver flinched; he’d never seen Fred like this before.

“I’m aware, I stomped on his foot for it. And trust me, I’d like little more than to let you maim him, but we have bigger fish to fry today, Love.”

Fred looked down at Leili, one hand on his chest, the other around his forearm. He rotated his hand in her grip, long fingers wrapping around to hold her arm.

“Could I talk to you two, fer a minute?” he asked, bursting their tender little bubble.

Fred looked to Leili for her feelings on it, she shrugged; so the three of them moved away from the crowd a little ways. 

“In case I doon’t get to say this later, I-uh-Ahm soorry. Ahm soorry for how I treated ye, Leilani, and Ahm soorry I got in yer way, Fred. If it hadn’t been for me, you two would’ve gotten together a long time agoo. I was a carnaptious bampot and Ahm soorry. I’m sorry I took advantage of ye. I canna answer yer question, Leilani, but I can say that I was an ass, just as ye said. Congratulations on yoor weidding, by the wee.”

Leilani blinked at him, mentally chanting: _Be the bigger witch. Be the bigger witch. Be the bigger witch. He’s trying to meet you halfway, so suck it up, Buttercup and_ **BE THE BIGGER WITCH**.

So she opened her mouth and didn’t fight it when her accent came out Scots. 

“I canna say yoo’re forgiven, as I doon’ knoo how Freid feels, but as for me, ye didn’t do any lastin’ damage. There’s noo shame in admittin’ that we weren’t right for each other, b’cause we weren’t. Instead of _enhancing_ oour lives, we made each other worse. I wish you the beist of luck in your Quidditch career and hoope you find a nice girl who can beat the ever livin’ shite out of you if you ever screw her over.”

The closure she offered wasn’t false, but it wasn’t wholly honest, either. 

She’d meant most of it: they really hadn’t been right for each other, the wounds he’d inflicted had healed and she really _did_ hope some girl beat the crap out of him if he tried it again, but her reason for not offering forgiveness wasn’t because of Fred’s feelings. He had his own forgiveness to offer, if he wanted, but it was separate from hers. She didn’t give it because she couldn’t offer something she didn’t feel. 

She wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive him, not fully. There was a movie quote, “Some people say forgive and forget. ...I say forget about forgive and just accept. …And get the hell out of town.” But she rather felt it would detract from this new olive branch if she were to admit any of that.

“When did she—how did she—?” Oliver spluttered to Fred, trying to figure out when Leilani had learned his accent.

Fred stopped him mid-boggle, “Never mess with a Hufflepuff. See you around, Wood,” he gave him a thump on the back before he and Leilani walked away. Wood suddenly had the desire to find a mirror and make sure Fred hadn’t stuck a ‘Hex Me’ sign on his back.

His search for a mirror was stopped when Leilani climbed up to stand on a table, “Everyone! Hey! We’re passing around vials of lucky potion; please drink it! I don’t have enough to ensure victory but if everyone drinks this, our odds for survival will improve. I know it’s not much, but it’s the best I can do.” Leili hopped down and helped pass out the vials of shimmering potion.


	133. Awaiting a Guardian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psst. I don't speak a lick of latin and google translate kinda failed me, so I'm winging the spell here. If anyone speaks it and can figure out the incantation I should use, please, feel free to drop me a note, I'm always happy to learn something.

30 minutes to midnight, May 1st

Post-Hogwarts

\--

Jo watched as the teachers hastily threw protective enchantments up around the castle but Dementors sailed through before the shield closed. There was a spell she and Leili had been working on since meeting their Patronuses in Dumbledore’s Army, a spell that had yet to work properly. They hadn’t known anything about creating or modifying spells then, but Jo’d had the idea that if a Patronus could be used to send messages, maybe they could create a Patronus that didn’t need constant re-casting. 

For two years they worked on it, reading up on Latin and spell creation, poring over magical theory textbooks, writing letters to Charms experts, including Professor Flitwick. Leili’s entire Magic Theory class had helped out. 

They had narrowed down the possibilities to one incantation, roughly translated to ‘I await a forever guardian’.

“ _In Perpetuum, Expecto Patronum!”_ Jo cast, with Leilani echoing the phrase. It turned out a life or death situation was just what the spell needed to work. Jo’s Fire Salamander charged at the Dementors, Leili’s dolphin hot on its tail and together the Patronuses chased the Dementors out through a fast closing gap in the shield. The Patronuses would patrol the outside of the shield, doing what they could to keep the Dementors at bay.

They were safe. For now.

The protective enchantments lasted long enough for Kanani and other former students to sneak the young ones away from the castle. Some floo powdered out, others, led by Kanani, were hustled through Ariana’s portrait and into Hogsmeade, from there they were floo powdered home. Kanani opted to stay with the young Slytherins whose parents were on the wrong side of this war, they were just kids and they had nowhere else to go. 

Most of them were scared. Some of them were trying to escape to meet up with their parents to help the Dark Lord—as their upbringing told them they ought. Others wanted to fight _for_ Hogwarts, it was _their_ school, _their_ friends and Slytherins were a loyal bunch. 

Aberforth shuffled Kanani and her charges into his wine cellar where they covered the floor in cushions. Kanani set every magical defense around the pub’s basement while Aberforth locked them in for their protection before he left to join the fighting—a conversation with Ariana’s painted self changed his mind about being too old.

By the time he got there, the shields around the school had shattered. The Death Eaters and their allies were swarming the school. Curses were flying every which way causing Witches and Wizards on both sides to die.

Jo took the hand of a boy who’d been hit with a knockback jinx. He’d hit his head on the ground and was left dizzy and unsteady. She grabbed his hand to keep him upright while she got him to a safe place to sit down. 

As they moved through the crowd, “ _Relashio_!” blasted his hand from Jo’s. Jo looked around for the offending Death Eater and found herself staring down the length of a wand.

“ _Anteoculatia_!” she hurriedly jinxed in return. 

Antlers sprouted from the offender’s forehead, knocking off his mask. Her heart thumped harder in her chest. She chalked it up to adrenaline as the mask fell off and it was Marcus’ face beneath it. 

“ _Colloshoo_!” she fired, going off to find the poor concussed boy before he got trampled. She grabbed his hand, hoisted him upright and dragged him along behind her as she headed for safety.

Marcus watched her go as the antlers began to outweigh his head and he tried to figure out how to counter the hex when the counter spell required six complicated steps, ending with him on his head, holding his wand with his feet, which were presently glued to the floor. 


	134. Safe

May 1st, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--

“ _Glacius tria!”_ Leili cried, wrapping Death eaters in a block of ice while Jo manipulated a dismembered set of armor. Using severing and mending charms she reworked the metal into a sphere around several wounded students, the poor concussed boy Jo had rescued among them.

“Are you done yet?” Leili asked impatiently before blasting a Death Eater away, “ _Bombarda!”_

“Nearly! _Protecto Horribilus, Repello Inimicum, Fianto Duri._ ” As Leili worked to keep Death eaters and spells away Jo created a safe haven for the injured. Once Jo had everyone gathered inside the metal ball, Leili took over.

She crawled inside, took a deep breath and told the injured, “I feel it’s only fair to warn you, I have no idea what I’m doing.” Then, she cast a spell to keep the wounded in a sort of suspended animation, if it worked, they would be asleep and barely alive. After a moment Leili exited the sphere and closed it off with a quick, “ _Expoximise._ ”

“Did it work?”  
  
“Gods I hope so. _DURO!”_ she shouted at a Death Eater who blocked it, “ _Incendio!”_ she shot back. “Otherwise I just killed a dozen kids by trying. _Glacius tria!”_ she cried, encasing a death eater’s wand hand in a gauntlet of ice. "And despite all the times I've threatened bodily harm on someone, I'm really not ok with that."


	135. Armistice

May 2nd, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--

"You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured." Voldemort’s voice decreed. 

Voldemort had given them an ultimatum: deliver Harry, or Die. Well, obviously they weren’t going to just hand him over, so they had fought and people had died. 

Instead of helping, Ron stood there, staring stupidly at the bear that was walking towards him. He didn’t recognize Jo, but then he was probably in shock. Hermione was much quicker on the uptake, though admittedly how many bears could there possibly _be_ wandering around Hogwarts? Not many. 

Jo walked over and gave each a good wuffle. Deciding they were ok, she gave them a brusk nod before ambling off to help Leili pull kids and wounded out of their makeshift safe haven.

They were surrounded by the dead and dying. Leili wasn’t sure she could handle it. She kept her chin up and the bile down while she worked, separating the injured from the dead, shuffling them over to Madame Pomfrey. 

Triage, the nurse called it, worst cases first. But there were so many ‘worst cases’ that after a while, Leili couldn’t tell anymore. That was when Jo came over, her big fuzzy bear head plunked gently on Leili’s shoulder, applying light pressure.

“You need to sit down,” the pressure said.

“I _can’t_ ,” Leili replied, but she was shaking.

Jo stood up on her back legs and plopped two heavy paws on Leili’s comparatively tiny shoulders and applied the slightest pressure. 

Leili got the “If you don’t sit down, I’m gonna make you sit down,” message loud and clear and so she sat. Well, more like collapsed. On the ground now, Leilani’s stomach heaved. She turned over, but there was nothing in her stomach to throw up. She barely noticed when Jo shrank back into human form and started scraping long hair away from her face. 

When the dry retching had stopped, Jo sat down, tucked Leili’s head under her chin and gave her a gentle squeeze. 

Leili burst into tears. 

She hated crying, she really did, but she _knew_ these people. Little Colin Creevy was dead; Lavender Brown had been brutalized by Greyback and might not make it. If she did, she’d be horribly scared. Lavender would be lucky, like Bill she’d been bitten by Greyback in human form so she wouldn’t become a werewolf. Snape was dead; they were bringing his body into the hall now. 

Tonks and Lupin had been found reaching for each other. Tonks was dead and Remus was going to be distraught when they told him, _if_ he survived his injuries. Oliver was dead and Leili was surprised at how sad that made her—she almost regretted not forgiving him. Fred was nowhere to be seen, neither was Marcus. Just because the Slytherin was on the other side now, didn’t mean she didn’t look for him, even if only out of habit.

Sniffing back snot and rubbing tears away with her wrist, Leili eventually asked, “Hey, Jo? Have you seen Fred?”

“No, he was with his brother I think, last time I saw him.” 

“I’m going to go find him, ‘kay?”

“’Kay,” she nodded. “Lemme know if you can’t find him, I’ll help look.” She pulled a hair tie out of the recesses of a pocket and offered it. 

Leilani smiled a little and took the tie, “Got your necklace? Good. I’ll be back.” Leili left the Great Hall in search of Fred while Jo went back to helping collect the dead and injured. 

So many bodies were strewn across the floor. Professor Vector from Arithmancy and Professor Babbling from Ancient Runes were both carried away as she passed.

“Fred?” Leili called as she walked the hallway, sniffing back the remaining tears. Every now and then she’d stop to feel a pulse on someone lying on the floor. All dead. Eventually she rounded a corner and saw a flash of red hair.

“Fred!” she called, relieved. But it wasn’t Fred who turned to face her; it was one of his brothers, Percy, judging by the tie and formerly slicked back hair. Her stomach dropped to her toes at the look on his face. Time seemed to move in slow motion as she looked beside him and saw a hand, wand fallen from a lax grip. 

“ _FRED_!” she screamed, running towards the pile of rubble. Every step she took felt like moving through mud, the ambient noise of the castle died away and was replaced with a ringing in her ears. Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest.

She skidded to her knees and began helping Percy remove chunks of the wall. When at last she could see Fred, his head was hemorrhaging. As she looked helplessly around for something she could use to stop the bleeding, the damaged Room of Requirement sensed her need and stocked itself with bandages. She lurched forward and grabbed a fresh white medical pad, pressing it to the wound with scrabbling hands. He had taken the lucky potion and so had she, this shouldn’t have happened. 

Gently, she pulled a strand of his red hair, made redder with blood, from beneath the pad, noticing as she did that her fingers crackled with lightning. She had to be careful to avoid skin-to-skin contact. If she shocked him now, she might very well kill him. Sometimes she really hated her stupidly sensitive defense mechanism.

“What happened?” she croaked as she fumbled with her left hand for her wand and then again as she tried to angle it to tap the bracelet she wore on her left wrist and activate the protean charm there.

“Death Eater’s spell. We were caught in the avalanche.” Percy caught the sparkle of a ring on her left hand but it didn’t matter right now. He didn’t know this girl but she obviously knew Fred. Very well, it seemed.

“Are you ok?” she asked, trying to keep it together.

“I will be as long as he is,” Percy choked. Nothing like staring death in the face to make you reevaluate your family ties.

A minute later Jo was barreling around the corner in bear form, changing back in the space of one stride. “What happened?!” She demanded of no one in particular.

“We need to get him to Madam Pomfrey!” Leili shouted.

Jo grabbed a roll of bandages and began hurriedly wrapping Fred’s forehead, nudging Leili’s hand out of the way, ignoring the _zap_ as she did. Wand hand free, Leili cast a quick “ _Ferula”_ on Percy’s leg while Jo conjured a kit.

“ _Immobulus_ ,” Jo cast, immobilizing Fred with a spell in lieu of a stretcher, “Here, help me get him into the sling. He'll get there faster if I run.”

“I can’t touch him,” Leili said miserably, trying very hard not to accidentally electrocute somebody. So Percy with his broken and splinted leg helped Jo maneuver his brother onto the kit. Jo transformed back into a bear, took the edges of the sling in her mouth and was gone in a flash.

“ _Locomotor mortis,_ ” allowed Percy to not have to walk on his injured leg. Percy gave a quiet sigh of relief and a grateful smile as he floated along behind Leili who flew down the halls after Jo.

Jo barreled up to Madame Pomfrey and gingerly laid down her bundle while Leili transformed between one wing beat and another, dropping to her knees on the stone floor beside Fred. “ _Fix him!_ ” she begged, “ _PLEASE!_ ” She was crying again, not that she noticed. “Please, you’ve gotta fix him…”

“I’ll do my best, dear,” Madame Pomfrey nodded, unwrapping her patient from his sling. Jo dropped her big bear head on Leili’s shoulder only to get _zap_ ped. She let out a small, annoyed noise as she shifted out of her bearskin.

“Leili…”

“I’m not going anywhere until Fred is ok.”

Not that she would have suggested otherwise, though she might have suggested giving the nurse a _little_ more room to work. She also might have suggested Leili try to calm down a little, she was still covered in tiny arcs of white lightning, which were presently _zotz-_ ing Jo as she squeezed Leili’s shoulder with her chin before moving to sit beside her.

“Ok,” she said. “Gimme your hand,” Jo sent a jet of water through her wand and washed Fred’s blood off Leili’s palm and then Leili’s wand.

Leili looked at Madame Pomfrey, desperate, “How is he?”

“Concussion, blood loss, his chest was compressed but he’s breathing fine now, still he may have some oxygen deprivation, we won’t know how bad until he wakes up.”

“So he’ll be ok?” Percy asked.

“I’m hopeful you got him out in time, but we’ll have to see how bad the damage is when he wakes up. I’ll set the fracture in his pelvis and relieve the pain. He’ll need to go to St. Mungo’s for a Blood-Replenishing potion. We'll know more when he wakes up.” _If he wakes up._

While Madame Pomfrey fixed Percy’s leg, Leili sat, Fred, unconscious on one side, Jo silent except for the sound of her breathing on her other.

“ _Andante, Andante…”_ she sang in a whisper. “ _There’s a shimmer in your eyes. Like the feeling… of a thousand… butterflies._ _Go on, play, Andante, Andante, ‘n’ watch me…”_ Her voice cracked. _“float away…”_

Jo hooked her finger around one of Leili’s, trying to be a comfort anyway she could. “Who did this?” Jo asked Percy.

“Death eater. Spell blasted the wall, caused an avalanche.”

“Who was it?” Jo specified.

“Rookwood.”

“I’ll get him,” Leilani said.

“Leili…” Jo started, not sure what she was going to say but sure that she didn’t want her soul to be mangled. 

“I’ll get him, Jo.”

Jo took Leili’s hand fully in her own.


	136. Blood Bombs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was partially inspired by Hufflepuffs finding the best hide and seek places and just popping out of the woodwork during the battle, I don’t know whose head canon it is originally, my record is missing the username. I think it was also partially RM’s idea, I don’t remember.

May 2nd, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--

They were most of the way through the reprieve in the fighting when Harry reappeared. Fred and Percy had been whisked away to St. Mungo’s along with the other grievously wounded.

“Jo,” Leili said. Her voice was rough; too much crying.

“Hmm?” Jo hummed.

“Harry’s back.” Using each other as leverage, the girls stood up.

“Hiya, Harry. We need to borrow you for a minute,” Jo said when they reached him.

He’d just pulled his head out of the pensive but was still engrossed in Snape’s memories and was trying to resign himself to his fate. Neither can live while the other survives.

“Why do you need _me_?” Harry asked; the two Hufflepuff girls were starting to freak him out just a little. 

“Blood bombs, Harry, Blood bombs. You never went to the graveyard, _we_ did; he didn’t take your blood, he took _mine_. The protection your mother left you, _you still have it_. Your touch burned Quirrell, therefore, your blood should do the same to Voldemort,” Jo explained.

In an effort to distract herself, Leili jumped in, “But it’s only a one-shot weapon. The human body has what, 9 pints of blood in it? And if I remember my family dinner discussions well enough, it takes the body a month to recover. So we can’t take too much and we have to use it sparingly.”

“Let’s do it! I’ll give you whatever you need,” Harry said eagerly. Jo followed and Leili borrowed Lee. She wouldn’t bother any of the Weasleys with this harebrained scheme, not while Fred was hurt, not while he still might die. 

“We’ve got less than half an hour. So let’s do what we can. We need water balloons and good place from which to launch them. We also need Madame Pomfrey because I am _not_ competent to do this.”

The Matron pulled the blood from him into a syringe and then squirted it into a balloon Lee had conjured up. They had originally planned on using a little blood in several balloons but Harry’d come up with the better idea of replicating them and then using the Gemino curse to multiply on contact.

“Find out who has the best aim and pass out the balloons, please?” Leili requested, handing Lee eleven balloons in a basket. 

“All right, Harry, you’re free to go.” And just like that, Harry was gone, only a little woozy. He went into the forest, turned the Resurrection Stone thrice in hand and walked to his anticipated death. 

“I should be up there with you,” Jo protested after Leili explained her plan to hide in the rafters.

“You’re afraid of heights. What are you gonna do if we get caught? Jump? I have the advantage of being a small bird. If I get caught, I can fly down. You’re a bear; you’d be trapped up there. I’ll be ok. Stay down here.”

Jo folded her arms over her chest, hip cocked stubbornly to the sice, “I don’t like it. There’s _no way_ I’m letting you go up there alone! At least I know that if I jump, I’m going to die when I hit the floor, that takes the fear right out of it.”

“The hour is almost up, we don’t have a choice.”

“You could _not_ go up there!”

In the end, Jo won. It was the best place to drop a balloon on Voldemort’s head, it really was. Jo grabbed a broom and she and Leilani flew up to the beam with a balloon and then they waited.


	137. Snakes in Badgers’ Clothing

May 2nd, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--

As Voldemort walked into what remained of the Great Hall, he gloated, “Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him.” Hagrid was made to lay Harry at Voldemort’s feet. “We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone. The battle is won!”

There was no time to grieve nor to process what they were hearing. Harry was gone but there was still work to be done. If Harry had failed, then it was up to all of them to do it for him. They had to save themselves.

A voice from above shouted, “NOW!” and blood filled balloons soared through the air. Some splattered on the ground, ineffective, but others hit their mark, splattering Voldemort and nearby Death Eaters. The balloons multiplied and popped on contact with

Voldemort cried out in pain as blood that splattered on his skin sizzled and burned. Smoke rose from the contact areas and all eyes shot to the ceiling and where Leilani teetered dangerously far over the edge of the wooden beam. The only thing that kept her from falling was Jo’s hand fisted in the back of her belt. Leili stared, wide eyed, as Voldemort looked directly at them, his eyes slitting dangerously. 

“Shit,” Jo swore to herself. “How did he even find us up here?” she hissed.

And then howls of pain echoed through the hall. All eyes shot from the ceiling to the Death Eater on the ground doing his best impression of a living torch. Apparently, when one’s groin was on fire, logical thought went fluttering merrily out the window. All he had to do was cast _aguamenti_ and put the fire out—or if he had spent any time in a muggle school he would have known all about ‘Stop. Drop. And Roll.’ Instead he stood there, shrieking, and hitting the front of his robes to try and put it out. Leilani seized upon the opportunity she had created and shrank from girl to bird fast as she could.

Meanwhile, Jo hopped on to her broom as she jumped off the ceiling beam—she could do a similar trick with her bike, though not quite so dramatically.

Suddenly, an invisible hand seized Jo around her middle. It pinned her arms to her sides leaving her to try and steer the broom with her knees. Leili flew but with a wave of Voldemort’s hand, she was forced out of her bird form. She yelped as she entered a free fall that Voldemort aborted in the knick of time. Rookwood had, in the scuffle, managed to put himself out—which everyone privately thought was unfortunate.

“You two…” Voldemort whispered, various places still smoldering from where Harry’s blood had touched him. “Well, well, the two sssnakesss in badger’sss clothing,” he hissed, bringing them upright and eyelevel. All the better for taunting.

“Coming from anyone else, that’d be a compliment!” Leili snapped back at him.

“After all your efforts to protect Potter, he dies at my hand. How will you ever live with yourselves?” Voldemort goaded. 

Secretly still alive on the floor, Harry’s mind reeled, he’d discovered that the two Hufflepuffs had helped out a lot over the years but his mind was still trying to make it all fit.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jo challenged, her chin jutting out.

“Still playing your little game are you?” he laughed, a chilling laugh that rippled down Leili’s spine, sending goosebumps down her arms. He turned to look out at the crowd; he glanced at the students and addressed them, “Do you want to know how much they have done for you?”

He turned back to the girls he still held in place with the hover charm. “Shall I divulge the extent of your participation? Shall I tell them exactly what happened four years ago? How you helped dear, sweet Harry Potter through the Tournament? Or should I go back further? Back, all the way to the beginning?”

“Oh, God, he's gonna monologue us to death,” Jo interrupted. Voldemort glared at her, red eyes slitting further. “Oh, _so_ scary.”

“D’you really expect us to just whimper in fright over here?” Leilani asked, she was no Gryffindor but she had been dating Fred long enough to know how to fake it till she made it.

“Apparently, not too brigh—” Jo was cut off by a silencing charm cast by Bellatrix, who had gotten tired of listening to Jo yap.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice, cutting a girl off mid-word like that.” Leili seemed determined to piss these people off.

“You're one to talk about nice, girl,” Voldemort said almost bemusedly.

Leili said under her breath, just loud enough to be heard, “If you’re referring to Rookwood, he deserves it.”

Leili’s piercing scream echoed through the Great Hall as she was promptly hit with the Cruciatus curse. Rookwood hadn’t known who’d set him on fire, but he did now.

Harry fought to keep his face impassive, he hated knowing she was in excruciating pain and not doing anything but he didn’t see that he had a choice. If he helped her now, Voldemort would know he was still alive and he wasn’t ready for that to happen yet. He gritted his teeth and steeled his nerves and made a mental note to apologize later.

“Hear how she screamsss!” Voldemort cried, a sick smile on his face as he hissed the last word. 

The screaming stopped abruptly when Jo snagged a rock off the ground and hurled it at Rookwood’s nose. A silent _immobulus_ later the girls hung suspended, silently paralyzed and Voldemort returned to his speech.

“They don’t want you to know what they’ve done. Modesty. How _quaint_. You’ve got two changelings living right under your nose, and you didn’t even notice. Two sssnake eggsss hatched by a badger.” 

After a moment he turned his snake eyes on Leilani whose skin was prickling with tiny arcs of lightning again. No one had told her that even after the Cruciatus Curse had been lifted she would still hurt. 

Not-Moody may have been an imposter, but it would have been nice if, while he was telling them about all the _other_ nasty curses, he had mentioned the after-pain of _crucio._

Voldemort’s face turned euphoric, “I could use loyalty and power like yours, oh yes, I know about the lightning, and I know how you managed it. I could tell you how, you know. Join me and unlock the secrets of magic you’ve only _dreamed_ of.”

Leili glared, a thought from him and she was free to speak her answer, “ _Never,_ ” she panted, wishing she could curl up into a ball until the pain subsided—it was a miracle she hadn’t passed out or thrown up. “I may not know _exactly_ where my lightning comes from or how _exactly_ it works but I will _never_ join you, _especially_ not to ‘unlock’ any ‘secrets of magic’.”

The look on his face soured, anger collected in the lines of his snarl, the sheer fact that she _dared_ to reject him, it was _galling_! 

“You could have joined me, I could have made you _great,_ but instead you choose _this_ , you choose _them_. And _you,_ ” he turned to Jo with a disgusted sneer on his face, “Filthy mudblood, polluting the bloodlines.”

Jo took exception to that. “ _I’m_ the mudblood in this situation? What about _you_? Your mother was a witch sure, but your Dad, _he_ was a muggle.” They’d learned Voldemort was half-blood in the chamber of secrets. Oh the blessings of remembering what seems like useless trivia after being attacked by a 50 year old memory. “And you know what? You’re a major hypocrite! Looking down on me for being muggleborn but offering a halfblood a place in your little gang,” she tsked.

“I _told_ you some people have a bug up their butts about us,” Leili reminded Jo.

“Can I kill it?”

“Working on it.”

“Would somebody _please_ get me a gun? Or a bazooka?” Those raised solely in wizarding society looked at each other in confusion, few knew what a _gun_ was, even fewer a bazooka.

Voldemort’s flat face turned livid, every snake-like feature contorting in anger. Then he realized they were distracting him again, though he didn’t realize that they had seen Harry throw his invisibility cloak over himself, proving he was still alive. 

He turned away from the girls and addressed the crowd, “Your precious _champions_ … have been the driving force behind every victory. From the very beginning, they’ve been there, lurking; watching from the shadows.”

“We did NOT _lurk_!” Leili objected.

“Yeah, actually we kinda did…” Jo muttered. They kept talking, trying to buy time for _some_ one do some _thing_.

“Back in their third year, they coerced a favor out of your resident poltergeist. It was rather easy I believe, Peeves liking nothing better than annoying that squib. The favor was simple; he would distract Filch while _dear_ Harry and his little mudblood friends made their getaway, and he could ask three things of them, each. Unfortunately, they stumbled across Hagrid’s pet, instead of their beds,” Voldemort tsked with a pointed smile directed at Ron and Hermione.

“The next year, I discovered they had an _alliance_ with my own house. Of course, then I heard you two had—how did Remus put it again? Oh yes,” he chuckled, “An unhealthy dependence on each other. I knew it would be simple to destroy you; like dominos, knock down one, the other will fall. Though I did not expect to have you show up at the graveyard the next year, let alone escape.” 

Leili turned to Jo, “That stupid rat!” she said, her upper lip curling at the reminder of Pettigrew.

“Tell me, how _is_ your little dalliance these days?”

“The Slyther-Puff Alliance is dead,” Jo monotoned, she hadn't missed the word choice. He wasn't entirely talking about the alliance. 

He ignored her. Of course the so-called _alliance_ had failed. Slytherin and Hufflepuff? Working together? It was absurd. “You failed to stop Draco from fixing the vanishing cabinet, you also failed to save Dumbledore, and now you’ve failed to save Severus and Potter.”

He turned back to the gathered crowd, “Harry only managed to get through the Tournament with a bit of help, you see. They laced his morning goblet with Felix Felicis the morning of the first challenge, thus ensuring his success,” he sounded highly amused. 

“And then a full human transfiguration into a Grindylow before the second task and of course, you all saw what happened at the maze. They snatched the portkey and landed themselves in the graveyard. This one,” he motioned to Jo, “was detrimental to my _rebirth_. Unfortunately they didn’t want to stay for the party.”

The Death Eaters laughed.

“And here’s another little secret they’ve been keeping from you, it is in fact their best kept secret; I, myself, only discovered it recently, your precious, _secretive_ , changeling champions are Animagi.” 

Leilani was torn between banging her head against a wall and strangling Voldemort. Jo, on the other hand, was itching to shift and use his head as a beach ball. How did he know all of this? Sure, some of it had come from Pettigrew but Peeves would never tell Voldemort anything. Unless Marcus had spilled the beans when he’d joined the Death Eaters. The thought hurt and rankled at Jo who had tried to forget him, but how could she? Even after everything, she was still in love with him.

“The Mudblood is a bear, and the Half-blood is a parrot.” The death eaters laughed amongst themselves.

Leili opened her mouth and corrected him indignantly, “ _Lorikeet_!”

Neville stood there listening, his brain scouring every time he’d run into Jo and Leilani over the years during a sticky situation, trying to pick apart the moments to see their handiwork underneath. 

The one memory that stuck out the most was when they had returned Trevor to him on his first train ride to Hogwarts. Suddenly he burst from the crowd with a yell, Harry heard the scuffle and the shout, saw a flash of light through his closed lids as he lay on the ground, and heard Voldemort’s laugh. He was flashing back to that first Halloween.

“And who is this? Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?”

“It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord! The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?” Bellatrix supplied eagerly.

“Ah, yes, I remember. But you are pureblood, aren't you, my brave boy?”

Neville’s back was straight, his head held high, the light in his eyes defiant as he said, “So what if I am?”

“You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom.”

“I'll join you when hell freezes over. Dumbledore’s Army!” there was a cheer from the crowd. Voldemort summoned the Sorting Hat and forced it onto the now-paralyzed boy’s head.

While his attention was focused on Neville, Leili caught sight of George, who was sneaking around the Death Eaters and with a delightfully wicked grin, tossed a portable swamp at Voldemort’s feet, yelling, “Swamp in the hole!”

The biggest, most foul smelling swamp he and Fred had ever created—likely influenced by a certain bog from a certain movie Fred and Leili, along with Marcus and Jo, had gone to see—burst into existence. 

Then, many things happened at once, as students were throwing on bubblehead charms at the warning, Harry threw his invisibility cloak over himself and scrambled to his feet. 

Neville broke the body-bind curse and withdrew the hat from his head and the sword from within it just as Nagini sprang towards him. In the midst of the chaos, the girls saw a flash of silver and the now headless snake dropped to the ground. And they reveled in the fact that the Death Eaters were choking on swamp gunk that was up to even Hagrid's ears. 

After towing them out of the way, George canceled the hover charm. Jo looked at the swamp and then asked, “Hey, do you think we can do that with acid?” 


	138. Battle at Hogwarts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This starts with the Marcus/Jo confrontation and moves into the final HvsV battle. Yes, I took it out of the book (because I saw no point in rewriting it) but I trimmed a lot out and paraphrased at least some of it, hence 6 pages instead of like 10 and I added a little bit at the end.

May 2nd, 1998

Post Hogwarts

\--

As the Death Eaters were dislodging themselves from the muck, two beaters from every house—except for Fred—took up their bats and beat in the bludgers. The black balls ricocheted off heads and torsos and when they came back to the students, the beaters _whacked_ them in again.

Unexpectedly, Jo found herself cornered by a death eater who had escaped the swamp’s muck. The death eater was more skilled in nonverbal spell work than she was, it was almost all she could do to dodge and shield in time.

**_Blast._ **

Dodge.

**_Blast._ **

_Shield._

**_Blast._ **

“ _Shit!_ ”

The death eater was pressing his advantage, stepping in every time he cast a spell so that every time she blocked, she had to step back to keep the distance. Pretty soon, he had backed her into a corner. She began pulling up every shield charm she knew when someone else jumped in front of her. She could recognize the back of that head anywhere.

As Marcus beat back his ally Jo cried, “What are you _doing_?!”

“Saving your ass!” He called back.

 _“Melofors_!” she said, turning their opponent’s head into a pumpkin “Whatever trick you’ve got up your sleeve, it won’t work!” she said before she turned her wand on him and forced sardines to pour from his nose.

“I’m—” _curse_ “Not trying—” _curse-curse_ “To TRICK you, damn it, I’m trying to HELP YOU!” _curse._

He was putting up with the annoying little spells she kept throwing at him. She had to alternate between cursing the death eaters that were attacking her and the one that was defending her. It was tough, but she made it work.

“You’re a DEATH EATER!” 

“Not by _choice_!” 

“ _WHAT?”_ she shrieked. 

“I LOVE you, Goddamnit!”

The world went silent.

Jo could hear her heartbeat in her ears as the words rang in her mind.

Suddenly a green spell missed Ginny with nary an inch to spare and Bellatrix cackled when Molly screamed, “NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU _BITCH_!” and the brief moment of peace was gone.

“What will happen when I’ve killed you? What will happen when Mummy’s gone?” Bellatrix taunted.

“You—will—never—touch—our—children— _again_!” screamed Molly, every word punctuated by a spell. She was quite right too, for her next curse ended Bellatrix’s laughter when it flew under her arm to hit her in the heart.

Bellatrix’s gloating smile froze, her eyes began to bulge: For the tiniest space of time she knew what had happened, and then she toppled. The watching crowd roared and Voldemort screamed, raising his wand at Molly. But Harry was quicker; he pulled off his father’s cloak and screamed, “ _PROTEGO!”_

The yell of shock, the cheers, the screams on every side of “Harry!” “HE’S ALIVE!” were stifled at once as Voldemort’s eyes settled up the black haired, bespectacled young man. Silence fell abruptly and completely as Voldemort and Harry looked at each other and began to circle each other.

People reached for their wands, and Voldemort hissed, “Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?”

“Nobody,” said Harry simply. “There are no more Horcruxes. It’s just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives. Only one of us is getting out of this alive.”

“One of us?” jeered Voldemort, his red eyes staring like a snake about to strike. “You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, or because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?” 

“Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?” asked Harry. They were still moving sideways in that perfect circle, “Accident, when I stopped you from getting the Stone? Accident, that I didn’t defend myself tonight, and still survived?”

“Accidents!” screamed Voldemort. “Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and sniveled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them in your place!”

“You won’t be killing anyone else tonight. You won’t be able to kill any of them ever again. Don’t you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people—” 

“But you did not!”

“I meant to, and _that’s_ what did it. I’ve done what my mother did. They’re protected from you. Haven’t you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can’t torture them. You. Can’t. Even. _Touch_. Them. You don’t learn from your mistakes, do you Riddle?”

“You dare—”

“Yes, I dare, because I know things you don’t know, _Tom Riddle_.” A hushed whisper rippled through the crowd. “I know lots of important things that you don’t. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?”

Voldemort did not initially speak, held back by the _faintest_ possibility that Harry might indeed know a final secret, but it didn’t last long.

“Is it love again?” he finally jeered. “Dumbledore’s favorite solution, _love_ , which he claimed conquered death. Love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like old waxwork! _Love_ did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a _cockroach_ , Potter—and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. So what will stop you from dying now when I strike? If it is not love that will save you this time, you must believe that you have some magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?”

“I believe both,” Harry replied, watching shock flit across his enemy’s face, there in an instant and gone in a flash. 

Voldemort began to laugh, humorless and insane, “You think you know more magic than I do?” he said. “Than I, Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of? Dumbledore is dead!” Voldemort hurled the words as though they would cause unendurable pain. “His body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of this castle. I have seen it, Potter! He will not return!”

For the first time, the watching crowd stirred as the hundreds of people around the walls drew breath as one, the way he spat the name of a hero to so many; it was almost blasphemous.

”Yes, Dumbledore’s dead,” Harry said calmly, “but you didn’t kill him. He chose his death, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant.”

“What childish dream is this?” he asked, but still did not strike.

“Severus Snape wasn’t yours. He was Dumbledore’s from the moment you threatened my mother. And you never realized it; because of the _one_ thing you can’t understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?”

Voldemort did not answer.

“Snape’s Patronus was a doe,” said Harry, “the same as my mother’s, because he loved her nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realized,” he said as he saw Voldemort’s nostrils flare, “he asked you to spare her, didn’t he?”

“He desired her, that was all,” Voldemort sneered, “but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, _worthier_ of him—”

“Of course he told you that,” Harry said, laughing slightly, “but he was Dumbledore’s spy from the moment you threatened her, and he’s been working against you ever since! Dumbledore was already dying when Snape killed him!”

Everyone watched as the pair circled each other like rabid dogs, listened as Harry revealed secrets about Dumbledore and Snape that even he had only learned tonight. Dumbledore was smarter than Voldemort; that much was obvious. He had orchestrated his own death, planned it with Severus Snape; if the situation hadn’t been so very dire Jo might have let out a triumphant “HA!” for she had been right and Snape had been a good guy all along.

“Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me! He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand! But I got there ahead of you, little boy—I reached the wand before you could get your hands on it, I understood the truth before you caught up, I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, the WAND OF DESTINY is finally, truly _mine_! Dumbledore’s last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!” Voldemort ranted, barely breathing between sentences. He sounded insane.

“Yeah, it did. You’re right; it did backfire. But before you try to kill me, I’d advise you to think about what you’ve done... Think, and try for some remorse, Riddle...”

“What is this?” Of all the things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this.

“It’s your one last chance,” said Harry, “it’s all you’ve got left. I’ve seen what you’ll be otherwise. Try for some remorse. Be a man, Tom.”

“You dare—?” Voldemort said again.

“Yes, I dare,” said Harry, _again_ , “because Dumbledore’s last plan hasn’t backfired on me at all. It’s backfired on _you_ , Riddle.” 

Voldemort’s hand was trembling on the Elder Wand, and Harry gripped Draco’s very tightly. Harry could hear the seconds ticking down in his ears; this was all about to come to a head very soon. 

“You murdered the wrong person, that’s why the wand won’t obey you. Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated Dumbledore.” 

“He killed—”

“Aren’t you listening? Snape never _beat_ Dumbledore! Dumbledore’s death was _planned_ _between them_! Dumbledore intended to die undefeated as the wand’s last master! If all had gone as planned, the wand’s power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him!”

“But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!” Voldemort shook with malicious glee. “I stole the wand from its last master’s tomb! I removed it against its last master’s wishes! Its power is _mine_!”

“You still don’t get it, do you? Possessing the wand isn’t enough! Holding it, using it, doesn’t make it really yours. Didn’t you listen to Ollivander? _The wand chooses the wizard_. The Elder Wand recognized a new master before Dumbledore died, someone who has never even laid a hand on it. The new master removed the wand from Dumbledore against his will, never realizing he had done, or that the world’s most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance…”

Voldemort’s chest rose and fell rapidly, and Harry could feel the curse coming, feel it building inside the wand pointed at his face.

“The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy.”

Draco stared at Harry; _he_ was the master of the wand that Voldemort had craved so badly?

But then Harry continued, “But you’re too late. You’ve missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him.” Harry twitched the hawthorn wand, and he felt the eyes of everyone in the Hall on it, particularly Draco’s. Draco, whose mind was reeling, Draco, who had turned good and no one had noticed. 

“So it all comes down to this, doesn’t it?” whispered Harry. “Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does… then _I_ am the true master of the Elder Wand.”

A red-gold glow suddenly burst across the enchanted sky above them as the sun appeared over the crown of the nearest hill. 

_“Avada Kedavra!”_

_“Expelliarmus!”_

With a bang like a cannon blast, the spells collided.

Harry saw Voldemort’s spell meet his own, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last.

With the unerring skill of a Seeker, Harry caught the wand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, his scarlet eyes rolling upward. He hit the ground with a mundane finality, his white hands empty, his snakelike face vacant.

Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hands, staring down at his enemy’s shell hardly daring to breathe. And after a moment’s silence, the air was filled with a deafening cheer as the few remaining Death Eaters Apparated away. Ron and Hermione reached him first and both hugged him and then Ginny who gave him a big kiss before he was lifted atop shoulders and everyone rejoiced.

Harry didn’t feel when Draco’s wand was slipped from his hand; it didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t notice Luna slip in front of the stunned boy and hand it back to him, he didn’t see Draco hesitantly take it from her and he didn’t see the forgiving smile Luna gave Draco before she skipped away.


	139. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear if eyes don’t at least mist at least once during this chapter I’m going to find an oubliette to hide in.

May 2nd, 1998

Post-Hogwarts

\--

The rebounding curse had killed Voldemort; Harry was finally free. 

Half the school had been destroyed in this fight to the death, and _so_ many people had been lost. Jo and Leilani leaned on each other and surveyed the damage done; it was silent except for the quiet grieving of the people around them.

“It’s finally over,” Leili said.

“Yeah… Now what’re we gonna do?” Jo chuckled, taking Leili’s hand; twin Occamys spiraling around their wrists.

“I dunno, Marty. Maybe we could start our own tutoring business.”

“Did you just think of that?”

“No, I’ve been thinking about it a while. Just waiting for the opportune moment to suggest it.”

“Well, tell me more.”

“I dunno, it was just something I thought might be kind of fun. We could set up in Hogsmeade and offer tutoring to the kids at the school; that’s really all I’ve got, haven’t had the brain space for creative thinking, y’know?”

“Yeah, we couldn’t set up in Hogsmeade though, only third years and up are allowed to visit with parental permission. We’d have to set up here, at Hogwarts.”

“I hadn’t thought of that…” she said, looking around at the ruined castle.

“I thought you wanted to go into wand craft?” Jo said.

“I do! But the biggest business for wands is before school starts and I thought it would nice to do something useful during the year. And I could always set up some sort of alert that would tell me when someone was there and I could floo powder or Apparate over to the shop.”

“I’m going to be starting training as an Auror pretty soon, you know,” Jo didn’t want to crush this new dream of Leili’s, but someone had to be practical. If she went and became an Auror, then she wouldn’t be able to help with this new tutoring business.

“Oh I know, and you’re going to be _fantastic_ , but with Moody, Lupin, Snape _and_ Slughorn gone, Hogwarts is going to need at least two new teachers. Maybe, when you’re done with Auror training, you can come back and teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Jo grinned, “I thought you wanted me to go into the tutoring business with you?”

“Yeah… that whole train of thought just sort’ve happened…” Leili mused. “I dunno,” she rubbed her face with her hands, “I’ve still got to talk to wandmakers about an apprenticeship. How about we revisit the tutoring idea when we’re both done with training; Deal?”

“Deal. Now, I think you should go check on Fred, I know you want to.”

“You sure?”

“ _Go,_ ” Jo half-ordered. Leili gave her hand a squeeze before heading off to see how Fred was holding up.

Marcus came over shortly after Leilani left.

“What was that about?” he asked, nodding in Leilani’s general direction.

“The conversation? The future.”

“What about it?” He carefully sat down beside her; he’d changed out of his death eater robes and rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, revealing the brand on his forearm. 

“We have one now. Never really did before… SO… you…love me, huh?” Jo said, picking at a scab on her arm.

“I do. I always did,” he dropped his forehead into his hand, his fingers in his hair. His dark eyes slid to look at her. Her knees were pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. He’d never seen her look so _small_. Had he hurt her so badly? Could he ever repair the damage he had done? Only one way to find out: keep explaining.

“If you love me, why did you choose _him_? I asked you to choose and you chose _him_!”

Marcus shook his head, “How can someone as beautifully clever as you be _so_ blind?”

He heard the sharp intake of her breath as she prepared to yell, to fight, to protest his words. He shifted onto his knees and took her face in his hands, scanning those beautiful features, taking in the anger and the anguish and the confusion. He was an asshole. “I chose _you_ , Jocelyn. I told you at the Weasley wedding, and I’ll tell you again everyday until you believe me: I. Choose. _You._ ”

She pressed her lips together to stop the wobble, fought to keep her eyebrows from pulling together but she couldn’t hide the hurt swimming in her eyes or stop it from leaking out of her words, “How is going off to be a Death Eater choosing me?!”

His thumbs caressed her cheeks, brushing off the tears that fell, “If I had stayed, they would have hurt you. I can handle being a pet wizard for Voldemort but I can’t handle you getting hurt. I—” he paused, unsure of how to explain this.

After a moment, he spoke again, this time starting from the beginning, “I was recruited as a Death Eater after we graduated. I flunked my exams the first time, because as long as I was here, I was of no use to them. I was safe. But my parents figured it out. They said it didn’t matter if I passed or failed the second time, I would ‘join the ranks of the Dark Lord’ when school was over. It didn’t actually happen right away. It took more than a year; I almost thought I’d gotten away from it. But then Potter and Company skipped school to go Horcrux hunting and suddenly I was their ace in the hole because I had something none of them _ever_ could have gotten. I had _you_. I didn’t want it, you have to believe me; _I didn’t want it_ ,” his voice cracked and his eyes burned, vision blurring. He would _not_ cry. 

Jo’s own eyes widened as she watched him fight emotions she’d cursed him for not having.

“The fight we had, the first time you asked me to choose, you should have seen my hands,” he chuckled. “I was clenching them so hard, I thought I was going break every bone in my fingers… I _wanted_ to choose you, to _tell_ you but if I did, then they would have known—they were watching that night—and then you’d be dead and then I’d be dead because I had no value to them except through you and I honestly have no interest in living without you. 

“They thought you’d tell me your plans, where Potter was, and that I’d tell them. So you had to think that I’d betrayed you. I didn’t have the guts to break up with you myself. It killed me to make you do it. I meant it when I chose you at the wedding. The wedding was their idea, too; they were trying to get me to get you to take me back and they thought Potter would show up. They thought that if we started dating again, it would be easier to manipulate you. They _branded_ me right after that,” he sneered at the mark on his arm, now just a fine red scar. “At least I got to dance with you before they crashed the party. That was the best part of these past nine months, dancing with you.”

“They were right. Harry _was_ there, disguised as a cousin. …I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk so much,” Jo told him. “Keep going. I haven’t decided to forgive you yet. You put me through hell, Flint, you better have had a _damn good_ reason for doing it.”

“Every time we were near each other, I blocked all the major curses and hexes from reaching you,” he offered.

“Every time we were near each other I was shooting hexes at _you_ ,” Jo snorted.

Marcus grinned, “I know. You have impeccable aim.”

“ _Impeccable_ , that’s a good word, where’d you learn _that_ one? From your dark lord and master, standing on high, playing track three?” She mocked.

“…What’s track three?”

“No idea.”

For the first time in a long time, they laughed together. He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead before moving to sit beside her again. Her face flushed with cold where his warm hands had been.

“You are also very creative with your hexes, I mean the melon head spell? Or making sardines come out of my nose? Clever.”

She would not be wooed with flattery. She wanted answers. “What else?”

“I had the advantage, if you can call it that, of being in a similar boat as Draco; he had Voldemort threatening his parents, I had him threatening you. I spent whatever free time I could find persuading Draco to leave the Death Eaters behind Lucius and Narcissa's backs. Sent an owl specifically to Draco’s room, the letters always written in invisible ink and charmed with _illegibilus_ so that anyone other than Draco would be unable to read them. The Slytherpuff Alliance is alive and well.”

“That explains it. Y’know, that’s been bugging me. We came to rescue Harry and Draco caught us. He didn’t turn us in.”

“I was there.”

Her face snapped towards him, “You were—you were what? You were _there_? I didn’t see you…”

“You weren’t supposed to. I thought if you saw me, you might not get out alive. I should have helped you, helped Potter and his friends but I hid. Like the spineless snake that I am, I hid.” He sounded utterly disgusted with himself. Slytherins were loyal and he had broken that loyalty—he didn’t deserve to be called a Slytherin and he didn’t deserve _her_.

“Why wouldn’t I get out alive if I saw you?”

“I thought you might hesitate and if you hesitated, they would have killed you. And then they would have praised me for causing your death. I couldn’t have lived with that.”

That stopped her thoughts in their tracks for a moment, then they recovered and she said, “You said you had no value to them unless it was through me. Why not? You’re a pure-blood Slytherin, I’d have thought you’d have had tremendous value.”

“Pretty much everybody in his inner circle was a Pure-blood Slytherin, believe me, he didn’t need any more. But someone who could keep tabs on the Boy-Who-Lived? Say, through a girlfriend who physically goes and tracks him down periodically? _That_ had ‘tremendous value’, _that’s_ why they wanted me—apart from my parents. I did nothing to keep our relationship secret when we were in school. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t know that you kept an eye on Harry until after I had asked you out and by that time it was too late. I wasn’t about to let you go. 

“When I told you my parents wouldn’t understand and that I'm not like them, I wasn’t lying. When they found out about us, they _didn’t_ understand. Theirs was an arranged marriage, a lot of Pure Blood maniac families are. They couldn’t understand how I could be in love with a Muggle-born Hufflepuff Seer.”

“I’m not a Seer,” she protested.

“You’ve got Seer in your blood somewhere,” he asserted.

“I’ve _looked_ through my genealogy and _I_ haven’t found any.”

He waved off her protestations, “It doesn’t matter; either way, you are a walking alarm bell and that’s another reason they wanted me to keep an eye on you, to find out exactly how much you knew and report back. When you vanished from the stands at the Tri-wizard Tournament, I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

Marcus felt a soft thump on his arm and shoulder. He looked over and saw Jo leaning on him. He very carefully lifted the arm and wrapped it around her shoulders. 

She scootched a tiny bit closer and draped an arm around his middle. She’d missed him. She had tried not to, but she’d missed him anyway. He dropped his cheek to the top of her head and gave her a half-hug.

“You haven’t said you’re sorry yet,” she informed him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He’d never meant it more.

“Tell me again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The other thing.”

Very slowly, he brushed his fingers through the hair tucked behind her ear. She melted into his embrace and he repeated, “I choose you. I love you. I’m sorry. I love you, I’m choosing you and I’m sorry.”

xxx

Leilani went in search of Fred, growing increasingly worried when she couldn’t find him. Dread pricked at the back her neck. “Not again,” she muttered to herself. She finally spotted Madame Pomfrey.

“Madame Pomfrey!” she called, jogging up to the nurse.

“Just a moment, dear,” the nurse said distractedly as she bandaged a wound. “Give me your hand.” Leili hadn’t even blinked before finding herself roped into service. She stayed quiet, letting Madame Pomfrey do her work, even though not knowing where Fred was gnawed at her insides. She rocked slightly from foot to foot, feeling sicker by the minute.

Finally, “Yes, dear?”

“You treated Fred earlier, do you know where he went? Is he ok?”

Gently and a little sadly, Madame Pomfrey replied, “He went to St. Mungo’s for further observation and treatment. He was unconscious when he left.”

“Right. Of course.” She’d seen him and Percy off; somehow, she’d forgotten that. She couldn’t call, Mungo’s was too high magic, they didn’t even _have_ a phone there to call and she couldn’t Apparate, the spells controlling that were still up on the castle. She couldn’t fly—by broom or by wing—it would take too long and she couldn’t just _leave_ Jo. She’d have to have a portkey made.

Leili returned to Jo to tell her the plan, only to find her snuggled against her ex-boyfriend’s side. Flint had succumbed to apparent exhaustion and fallen asleep, his arm still around Jo’s shoulders, his cheek against the top of his head.

“You’ve forgiven him?” she asked, as non-judgmentally as she could.

“He’s… _okay_. Not _forgiven_ exactly, but no longer on our Kill-List. Marcus is… I’m not sure. He seems sorry and you know how I feel—how I could never _stop_ feeling… I don't know. If we’re to survive this, it’s going to take some time. I think I’m willing to spend it. …I _think_ this is the first time he’s relaxed since we graduated...”

“I’m glad you’re ok,” Leili said, sitting down in front of her friend.

“Mm, Ditto,” Jo said. “You owe me 5 knuts, by the way.”

“Why…?”

“Ron and Hermione got together in their seventh year, like I said they would. You owe me 5 bronze knuts.”

Leili burst out laughing. They’d bet those 5 knuts so forever ago, she’d forgotten about it. “They didn’t _attend_ their seventh year, I hardly think I owe you anything.”

“This is still their seventh year, no cheating!”

“I’m not cheating! You’re cheating!”

“Tell you what, I’ll bet you those 5 knuts, _and_ one galleon that Hermione goes into Ministry of Magic and Harry comes back to teach,” Jo said around a yawn.

“Deal.” Leili sat there while Jo fought to keep her eyes open and lost. It was also the first time since graduation that _Jo_ had truly relaxed. “ _Accio blanket_.” As summoned, a blanket came hurtling over, smacking a few people in the face on the way. She draped the fabric over Jo and Marcus before going to find a way to St. Mungo’s. 

A convenient portkey taking wounded to Mungo’s had room for one more person so Leili joined them. The trip was quick and just as stomach churning as always, between port key travel and apparating, Leilani wasn’t sure which one she hated less. 

When Leilani finally found Fred, it was after traversing every floor—some twice in search. She was frustrated and scared, no one would tell her where he was and the idea that something had gone wrong was almost enough to make her weep, it was certainly enough to make her light headed.

When she finally found him, he was sitting up in a hospital bed and chatting animatedly with his twin. She bit back a relieved sob and his eyes met hers from across the room. He smiled and she broke into a run. He caught her as she skidded to him.

“Hi,” she said, her face buried in his shirt.

“Hi,” Fred grinned at her. He held her tight, nose buried in her hair. “You smell like Ozone,” he mumbled.

She laughed, looking up at him. “Boy, you sure know how to flatter a girl! You’re lucky I like you so much.”

He laughed, but it was true, he’d noticed before. Every time she went all lightning-ey, she came away smelling like summer thunderstorms. They were what he had smelled in a vat of Amortentia he and George had cooked up in their research for their love potion line. 

Summer storms, old, worn leather and wild cherry shampoo.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m okay,” he assured her. 

“How long have you been awake?”

“Not long.” He didn’t let go for a while, he couldn’t. He didn’t care that his entire family was staring.

Suddenly, a little throat-clearing cough broke through their bubble. Leilani froze in his arms. She hadn’t noticed they weren’t alone.

He gave her a squeeze before letting go; her left hand sought out his as she slid to sit on the floor. “Leilani, this is my brother Percy, Perce, this is Leilani.”

Percy watched them from his own bed, he’d only been back on his brother’s good side for a little while, but he could tell that together, Fred and Leilani were unbearably sweet. She was also beet red.

“Nice to meet you,” he said.

Leili nodded, “You too. How’s your leg?”

“Better.”

Oh _god_ , this was _not_ how she’d envisioned meeting his family!

To the rest of his family, he said, “This is Leilani, she’s my… girlfriend.”

Fred ignored the arched eyebrow George shot him, the wicked grin as he winked exaggeratedly. They could not however ignore Percy’s hacking, spluttering, coughing fit as he tried desperately to cover up his laugh. Everyone turned to look at him. He waved off his mother’s concern but couldn’t help the stupid grin that refused to leave his face. “I just never thought we’d see the day Fred got ma—aaaa girlfriend!”

Leilani narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, but then Fred was talking again, “Lei, these are my parents, you know George and Ron. This is Ginny and Charlie and Bill.”

He saw the half shy, half embarrassed smile she gave, “Hi,” she said, wiggling her fingers in a small wave.

“Hang on, I’ve seen you before! And you were one of the girls Voldemort singled out,” Ginny realized.

“Well of course you’ve seen me before. I graduated not _that_ long ago,” Leili said, edging the subject away from mutual torture by Voldemort. “It’s nice to officially meet you all.”

“No, it was more recent than that,” Ginny said. “You would come to the Room of Requirement. You brought food.”

“Ah. Yes. Well, somebody had to make sure you guys were being fed.”

“You fed them?” Fred asked.

“And watered. All but walked them. I figured they got enough daily exercise from running around Hogwarts all day. Besides, I didn’t have enough leashes,” she joked.

Fred snorted, imagining Leilani and Jo taking all the students who had been in hiding out for walks like they were puppies.

Arthur shot her a bewildered look. 

“I’m kidding. We did bring them food and water, though. They also came to us with nightmares, occasionally. But they were usually the younger ones.”

Most of their questions were the usual mundane type of thing, when did they meet, “ _Technically,_ 6th year,” Leili said.

“We had classes before that, though. She threw a snowball at me in 2nd,” he pointed out, teasing.

He watched as she turned to look at him, “I didn’t _mean_ to, I just happen to have quasi-crummy aim… You could have said something, y’know,” she teased right back.

“I did!”

“Yeah, five years later.”

“It counts.”

“Yeah-huh.”

“How long have you been dating?” Ginny asked, they bickered and bantered as though they’d been together forever.

“Since 6th year,” he replied.

“ _Fred_! Why didn’t you tell us you had a girlfriend?! You’ve been dating for _four_ _years_! You should have said something!” Molly fussed. “It’s so nice to meet you dear!” Molly threw her arms out wide and wrapped Leilani in a crushing hug.

“Actually, we didn’t start dating until the end of 6th year so it’s really been more like three years,” Leilani offered as all the breath was squeezed out of her lungs. It didn’t help. 

“Honestly, Mum, I invited her to Bill’s wedding, I would’ve introduced her then,” Fred explained when his mother released Leilani.

“Things went kinda south when the Death Eaters showed up,” Leili added. He was still holding her hand. 

He decided _not_ to mention they were married, and had been for six months. He knew she was thinking the same when he felt her twisting her ring around so the band faced out. No need to make an awkward situation worse.

“Are your parents here, dear?” Molly was already looking around as if they would materialize out of thin air—which, considering Apparation, was technically possible.

“No, no they’re not.” Catching the look on Molly’s face she rushed to say, “They’re fine! My mum’s a muggle, so she and Dad took an extended vacation to Hawaii and my sister came, but she helped evacuate the kids and is staying with them until they can get home.”

“Where do you live, dear?” Molly asked.

“Right now, above the Hog’s Head Inn, in Hogsmeade with Jo. Jo is short for Jocelyn, she’s my best friend,” she added, obviously not wanting them to get the wrong idea. “My parents live in Brighton.” 

Her Occamy tattoo twined down her right arm and blinked at Ginny who grinned at it. “That is _awesome,_ ” she enthused. 

Grateful for the change in topic, Leili beamed at her and lifted her arm, palm down, fist closed loosely. The tattoo inched down just a bit further and Ginny hesitantly brushed her fingertips over its beak. It felt like skin, but the Occamy closed its eyes and gave Ginny its best impression of a smile.

“Sometimes it’s easy to forget that’s just a bit of charmed ink,” Fred commented, watching the exchange.

“You should see my Niffler,” Leili muttered, letting her head fall back against his bed, her tongue tip between her teeth, eyebrows quirked in a way that was more comical than suggestive. 

Merlin he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to get her alone somewhere so he could wrap his arms around her and not let go.

“How did you do that lightning spell?” Percy asked, bursting Fred’s bubble again—probably for the better.

She sighed through her nose, “It’s not a spell.” She lifted her head to address Percy, “Not exactly. And I didn’t _do_ it so much as it just _happens._ I don’t know exactly how it works but the most common factor seems to be fear; a mind numbing, ‘scared witless’ _slash_ ‘I’m about to die’ kind of fear. It manifests as lightning. …I have to be careful that I don’t accidentally electrocute someone when it does. Been there, done that,” she shrugged. “Luckily, I’m not usually that scared so it’s only happened a handful of times. Three; that I can think of.”

“Three?” Fred murmured.

She tipped her head back again to look at him and murmured back, “Oliver, Not-Moody, and when you were hurt.”

“Don’t forget the time in the graveyard,” Fred reminded her.

“Right. Four. Four times.” Of course, all four times had happened in the last three years or so. “Five, if you count the whole Voldemort _thing_ a little while ago.” She stopped counting before she could think of anymore.

Surprisingly, it was Arthur who then asked, “So, when are you coming to dinner?”

“Um, whenever you’d like me to; I think I’d like that, I think I’d like that a lot, actually. Just maybe not tonight or tomorrow, I’d like to spend a little time with my parents and Kanani,” she chuckled. “Excuse me, I need to make a quick phone call.” Leili said, smiling politely before she gathered her feet under her, turned and wrapped her arms around Fred.

“I love you,” he said into her ear.

A grin threatened to split her lips as she pressed her cheek against his, “I love you, too.” He gave her a squeeze before letting her leave.

She stepped outside the hospital and first dialed her parents on the landline phone in the Hawaii house. Tears were shed, reassurances were given and a half-hearted lecture was received. Finally she called Jo, forgetting for a moment that the cell phone wouldn’t work inside Hogwarts—or if by some impossible chance that it did _ring_ while Jo was in the school (which it wouldn’t) the second she tried to use it, the ambient magic that imbued the very _walls_ would fry the circuitry and the phone would be so much burnt toast.

So Leilani left a message detailing her conversation with the Weasleys. “I know what you’re going to ask, ‘did we tell them we were married’ and the answer is: Oh dear god, no. No, we’re gonna save that particular bombshell for another day. I do however believe that Percy knows which makes like half the family that knows and Molly’s not stupid, she’s gonna figure it out unless we are so careful—and I’m not sure it’s worth keeping this a secret if we have to work at it, y’know? Anyway, I hope you and Marcus had a good talk and a restorative power nap because I’m gonna need to hear _all_ about that later.” She sighed and tried to think if there was anything else she wanted to say, “Alright, I’m gonna run. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

Leili slipped inside the ward even as she shoved her phone back into her pocket. 

“Hey, you’re back,” Fred grinned as she slipped inside the door.

“Hi.”

With his family gone, he was free to kiss her as he’d wanted to since she’d skidded into his arms, much to the resounding cheers of the other patients in the ward.

When the kiss broke, he kept her close, foreheads touching, breaths mingling. She broke away briefly and he grumbled his disappointment at how empty his arms suddenly were.

“Oh, quit your moaning,” she teased, crawling onto his hospital bed to lie down beside him, taking his hands in her own. He twisted her rings back around on her finger so the stones faced out again.

He ran a thumb across her cheek, wiping away the tear that escaped, joking, “Hey, where’s the funeral, huh? Who died?”

She choked on the sob, burying her face in his chest, “Oliver. _Oliver_ died. And Tonks and some kids who snuck back in to fight and they’re all—all _dead_! And I couldn’t save them! And I saw you lying there and you were so _broken,_ I was so afraid that I’d lost you! And I don’t know how I _ever_ would have explained that to your mother!” 

He kissed the top of her head. “You _saved_ me, Lei. Perce told me you were the one who found us. You couldn't save those kids but you saved _me_. I’m sorry about Wood, I know you still cared about him.”

“Did not,” she half chuckled, half sobbed, scrubbing the tears from her face.

“Then why are you crying for him?” The question was teasing, her feelings toward Oliver were messy and complicated and Fred knew it.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she repeated.

“Never.”

“Oh, get a room!” someone called.

“They _are_ in a room!” someone else called back.

“Get a _private_ room!” the first person amended.

Leili shot them a dirty look that had no malice to it, turning back to Fred when he squeezed her hand, he was laughing and, as always, it was contagious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know this is titled The End, but we're not through yet. I've still got Cursed Child to tweak.


	140. After The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are snippets set at various points after the series. Each snippet is like a window into the girls' lives after the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I include at the top of some scenes a note about where I got the idea. Cursed Child gets its own chapter.

(This is based on the Tumblr post by Marauders4evr. It's a solid theory; I just poked it a little.)

**May 6th, 1998**

In St. Mungo's Harry sat by Lupin's bedside, tears glistening behind his glasses. Lupin had been unconscious for two days and inconsolable for another after being informed of Tonk's death.

"You say I was there?" Lupin asked curiously as Harry recounted his conversation with the Shades of the Resurrection Stone.

Harry nodded, "I thought you were dead. I mean, you showed up with Sirius and my parents and I thought you had _died_. And you said that Teddy would know why you died…!" He swallowed back the tears that threatened to over come him. He would not cry, not now.

"You said we were ok with you meeting Voldemort in the forest?" His head was still a little muddled so he was walking back through the story.

"Yeah. Sirius said dying was 'quicker and easier than falling asleep' and you said that Voldemort would be sure to make it quick because he wanted it to be over. My parents said they were proud of me."

Gently and slightly amused, Remus asked, "Tell me, Harry, does that _sound_ like us? Your parents whose dying words were about protecting you? Me who, believing Sirius was the reason James and Lily were dead, lectured you on your use of the Map? Or Sirius who broke out of Azkaban when he discovered Peter was masquerading as your best friend's rat? Sirius, who died fighting beside you in the Department of Mysteries?"

Harry opened his mouth, closed it and mumbled, "No, not really."

Breaking a chocolate bar in half, Lupin passed one piece to Harry, "Tell me the story again. The bit about the middle brother and the stone."

"Hermione tells it better, but the middle brother wanted to humiliate and cheat Death so he asked for something to return life to the dead. Death gave him a stone from the river and when turned three times, the brother's wife appeared to him. But she wasn't _alive_ , not really. She wasn't a ghost either and she eventually got sad and he killed himself to set her free."

Lupin mulled this over in his mind, "I think perhaps the stone shows us something like what the Mirror of Erised shows us, our heart's true desire. You wanted to see us again, just as the brother wanted to see his wife again. But because the stone was created by Death in response to what we are meant to perceive as a selfish request, perhaps the stone has an ulterior motive where the mirror does not. Perhaps the stone twists what we want to see in order to fulfill Death's goal for the middle brother, to lead us to our deaths."

"So… Because Death created the stone for a guy he wanted dead it's, like, cursed to convince the user to kill themselves?"

Remus smiled, "Well, assuming that the story is historically accurate and it truly was Death who created the Hallows for the reasons Beedle the Bard gives. Remember though, that Beedle was, ultimately, a story teller."

"So they might not have really been my parents or Sirius."

"Well it definitely wasn't _me_ you saw, as I am not dead."

Remus would go on to raise his son while tutoring Hogwarts students in Defense Against the Dark Arts, those parents that had a problem with his condition generally advised their children to stay away from him. Sometimes that worked, other times the kids came to him anyway. He raised Teddy as he felt Tonks would have wanted; combining his own childhood rebellion with the wisdom adulthood had brought. He encouraged him to hone his metamorphagus skills and was touched when Teddy decided to honor his werewolf father by tapering his ears to points—which Remus maintained had nothing to do with the extra piercings Teddy could fit that way. When Teddy was thirteen they went to a Weird Sister's concert in honor of Tonks.

He battled the bone crushing sorrow that came with losing the woman he loved and there were days, especially in the beginning, where making sure Teddy was fed and clean were the only things that got him through the dark and into the day. He was responsible for someone else now and by Merlin if he wasn't going to screw it up the way he was still afraid he might.

As a toddler, Teddy roamed the castle while his dad was working, except on the days where he was with his grandma. He befriended the portraits with his mood-ring hair and gap-toothed smile and he was adopted as the school mascot by a good portion of the students. They took it upon themselves to keep an eye on him, make sure he didn't fall down any wells since Sirius wasn't there to reenact 'Lassie'. He pulled McGonagall's tail once when she wasn't expecting it; this amused everyone _but_ McGonagall.

XXX

**May 11th, 1998**

The week after the battle that killed the Dark Lord, the girls got on with their lives. They couldn't stay working for Aberforth forever after all. So Jo dressed herself in her best non-dress robes and Apparated over to the Ministry of Magic, where she presented herself for Auror training.

The department had suffered some losses during the war, from Rufus Scrimgeour to Nymphadora Tonks and welcomed its new candidates with, well, not with welcome arms because Auror training was ruthless, diligent, and constantly vigilant, but as warmly as such a department could.

Alongside Jo, the new recruits included Harry and Ron and Neville, plus a few others she didn't know.

In Diagon Alley, staring at a dark door that filled her with nerves and excitement, Leili took a deep breath. She scrubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans, tossed her braid over her shoulder and opened Ollivander's front door.

"Step up to the counter, I'll be just a moment," his voice floated to her. She leaned her elbows on the counter and waited. Ollivander came around the corner, much smaller than she remembered. He looked old, wizened. "Ah, Miss Akina, how's your wand?"

"Trusty, as always," she held it clasped in her hands on his counter. "Mr. Ollivander," she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and said, "I'd like to be your apprentice."

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, surprised. He'd expected a much more mundane request, wand polish or something.

She panicked, "You are the best wand maker in England, and I—I don't want to replace you, mind—I'd like to learn from you. Work _with_ you. I like seeing kids get their first wand. I always peek in your shop windows when I'm in the alley. I've learned all Hogwarts can teach me and now I'd like to learn what you can teach me. I won't give away your secrets and if you'd rather pass the business to your children, I understand. But I'd like to learn from you, if you'll teach me."

He considered her in silence for a moment. By simply looking at her wand, clutched in her hands, he knew he'd sold it ten years earlier. "You graduated from Hogwarts some time ago, correct? Why come to me now?"

"There was something I had to do. Someone I had to protect. The war is over and they're safe now, or at least as safe as they can be, considering."

"Young Mister Potter, was it?" His eyes twinkled, reminding her of Dumbledore.

"Good guess," she laughed.

"Oh, it was no guess. I knew the moment I sold that wand, that we would see great things." He tugged her wand out of her grip and she let him, even if it felt like she was losing a security blanket.

"Mm…" she hummed. "He's just getting started, I think."

He looked at her wand, turning it this way and that way, giving it an experimental wave and then held it to his ear, "Mister Potter is destined for great things, yes, but you, you _chose_ to do great things."

She squinted at him, a little suspiciously, "…Is my wand telling you that?"

Instead of answering her, he inspected her wand. She'd kept it in good shape. "Ebony and Dragon heartstring, a stubborn wand for a stubborn witch. And yet, the wand's flexibility gives credence to your own. You wish to be my apprentice?"

"I do."

He handed her a blindfold as he went to pull down two more wands from the shelf, "Put that on." She tied it securely around her eyes and waited. "The wand chooses the witch, Miss Akina, let us see if yours will do so." He lay her wand on the counter beside the other two and shuffled them around. "By this point in time, you should have developed a bond with your wand. You should be able to tell me of the wands on this table, which one is yours. You may not touch them, that would defeat the purpose."

She debated asking exactly what the purpose was. Pick out her wand with out seeing or touching, hmm? A shell game. She could be ok at these; admittedly that was when she could _see_.

"Relax your mind, Miss Akina. Let your magic do the work."

How was she supposed to do _that_? "Can you give me a hint?"

"You want to be my apprentice? You must prove it to me."

What did this have to do with making wands? Nevertheless, she took a few deep breaths, almost like she was going to Apparate. She fixed an image of her wand in her mind and tried to recall exactly how it felt in her hand, how it felt to do magic with it. She let her hand hover over the counter. "This one. I think."

She heard him shuffle, then say, "Again."

"…Here." More shuffling. Again and again she chose and again and again he shuffled, mixing in new wands every turn until she knew she was looking for a familiar warmth and a faint tingling in her fingertips because it wasn't there. "It's not here." She couldn't see it, but every time she found her wand, golden magic sparkled at the tip, her wand continued to choose her and this was what allowed her to distinguish it from the others without sight or touch.

"Take off your blindfold, Miss Akina. Well done."

"I passed?"

"Oh yes. Eventually, you'll be able to do that with perfect accuracy with every wand you ever make. Ever wondered how I remember every wand I've ever sold?"

"We all do."

"That's how. You imbue the wands you make with a bit of your own magic and the two will resonate, similarly to how you and your own wand resonate. The resonance will tell you about the wand, things like the wood and core material. Come on into the back, I'll show you around." Fingertips tingling, Leili stepped past the counter and into the rest of her life.

Eventually, the new government heads would get around to expunging the Gringotts break-in from all five records. They'd been lucky that Voldemort had chosen to attack Hogwarts as soon as he did because it meant that no one had time to pursue criminal actions—or indeed any other kind of action—on them. If the government wanted to pursue and prosecute who broke in to the bank, they were going to have to prosecute their golden boy Harry Potter as well as Jo and Leilani. This left everyone feeling pretty sure they were safe. They were still cautious about it, treating it kind of like an inside joke; if you know, you know but if you don't, they sure as hell weren't going to explain it to you!

XXX

**Late May/Early June 1998**

After Voldemort's defeat, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall asked former Professor Galatea Merrythought to return, she also asked Marcus Flint to teach. Marcus needed the job. More than that, he needed someone to trust him. As a former death eater, jobs—and trust—were hard to come by.

Possible employers saw the faded Mark on his arm and turned him away. But she had taught him, she knew what he was like and she knew from Severus and Harry how a scar could define a person, so she had invited him for the interview. She asked him off the record how he had come to join the Dark Lord's ranks and what he had done while part of it and he told her. He told her every painful detail. The things he'd done, the things he hadn't done; the people he'd hurt—intentionally and not.

She hired him on the spot.

Marcus and Galatea split the years; guest lecturing in each other's classes when asked but Professor Merrythought wanted to return to retirement.

Jo was forgiving Marcus and they had moved in together and for once in his life, everything was starting to go right.

XXX

**After June 15th 1998**

For a while, everything had been good, Marcus had a good job, an amazing fiancée, but then everything changed the day Aurors broke down their door. "MARCUS FLINT," someone shouted, "YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR TREASON."

"Wha-HEY!" Jo yelled as they pushed her back. It was a miracle they hadn't come in wands a-blazing. "Marcus!"

At the back of the herd surrounding her bewildered fiancé was the head Auror, Gawain Robards. He didn't usually come out for simple arrests, there was something else going on. "Auror Robards! What is going on? Why are you arresting him?"

"Treason, Auror-in-training Mongomery. Your fiancé is a Death Eater."

" _Was_. Past tense," Marcus said. He would never deny his membership as one of Voldemort's goons, the faded tattoo on his arm was proof enough, but he could at least keep repeating the point that he wasn't anymore.

"There's no such thing as a reformed Death Eater," one of the Aurors snarled, taking half a step forward.

"Really?" Jo said dryly. "You really want to have this argument right now, while you're holding him at wand point?"

"He'll be given a fair trial, Auror-in-training Montgomery," Auror Robards said sympathetically.

" _Fair_?" she asked incredulously. "Fair like the one Harry Potter was given before the start of his fifth year? Where the trial was moved so that the accused would be sure to miss it? Or fair like the ones held for the first generation of Death Eaters? Where the accused was put in a cage after who-knows-how-long with the Dementors?" She fumed. "Or fair like the Americans who send the accused into a death chamber filled with a hypnotic sludge? Or how about fair like Rubeus Hagrid, who was imprisoned for opening the secret chamber under Hogwarts when actually it was opened by a possessed eleven year old?!" Her voice rose to a shout at the end and she was gesturing so wildly that the two aurors that flanked her took several surreptitious steps away so she wouldn't accidentally (on purpose) smack them.

The Head Auror blanched slightly before recovering and repeating, "He'll be given a fair trial."

"Before you haul me away to my probable doom—"

"Marcus!" Jo took immediate objection to the phrase, to the mindset; he was giving up!

Marcus repeated louder, "Before you haul me away to my probable doom, I'd like to say good bye."

Auror Robards hesitated before nodding, just once. Marcus turned with exaggerated slowness and crossed the room to Jo who was fuming at the actions of the man who was technically her boss. Marcus cupped her face, noting the tears she was holding back by a thread. She was angry and she was scared.

"I'll fix this," she said, wrapping her fingers around his own and turning to kiss his palm.

"I love you," he murmured. "No matter what happens, I love you."

"Don't say that! If you say that it means you don't think you're coming back and _you are_ _coming back_ , if I have to sail to Azkaban and break you out of jail by myself. You're coming back."

"Don't be ridiculous. Leilani would have your back the whole time."

His hand muffled her bubble of a laugh; he kissed the top of her head and turned back to the Aurors who wound _incarcerous_ around his wrists. They left and her apartment echoed with the ghosts of their footsteps. She called Leili—thank _god_ for cell phones.

"Hey Jo," Leili greeted. "What's up?"

"Marcus has been arrested. I need you to tell Professor McGonagall and Draco and get over to the ministry. They want to put him on trial for being a Death Eater and I'm not risking losing him because they want to make a point."

"Got it." They hung up without so much as a goodbye

Jo Apparated to Whitehall, the last time she'd been to the Ministry she'd borrowed Umbridge's fireplace but in this case it would make a better impression if she used the visitor's entrance. No way in hell was she letting them railroad Marcus into a cell in Azkaban.

Minister Shacklebolt was in the process of getting rid of the Dementor guards and replacing them with a rotating shift of Aurors but he was getting some pushback from people who thought it was unnecessary—after all Dementors had been loyal guards up until recently. Surely with Voldemort gone they would go back to being the good little pet monsters they were. So far he'd succeeded in getting the lower levels, minimum security as it were, transitioned but as an all-but-convicted Death Eater, Marcus wouldn't be put with the likes of Mundungus Fletcher (imprisoned 1997, later escaped.) Jo both did and did not want to know how on earth he'd managed to impersonate an Inferius.

She popped into sight in a shadowed alley and strolled purposefully toward a red phone box. She dialed 6-2-4-4-2 and a voice echoed inside the box, "Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."

"Jocelyn Montgomery, saving my fiancé."

The returned coins chute spat out her badge. "Thank you, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes. "Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium." The floor moved like a lift, lowering her into the Atrium. It was much the same as the last time she'd been here, the statue crushing Muggles beneath Magic's Might was gone and the old fountain that had been partially demolished during the fight to rescue Sirius had been repaired and reinstalled.

Jo ran across the atrium's floor, skidding sideways into a fast closing lift. "Auror Headquarters, please," she gasped to the man who controlled floor lever. The only surprise he showed was a brief blink before his nod.

A few minutes later the lift opened again and she sped down the hall, almost over shooting the office door. She yanked it open and went inside, "Auror Robards!" she called to the back of his head. "Where is Marcus?"

"He's been taken to the holding cells in preparation for his trial before the Wizengamot," he said before brushing past her. As he paused near the doorway he turned back to her, "Come on," he said. "I'm going that way."

Jo ran after him, "Why are you doing this?"

"It's not just your fiancé, we're rounding up all the Death Eaters we can find. Obviously the last time we arrested and interviewed the Death Eaters, we didn't do a very good job. Two of them went on to become teachers; one of them sat on the School board and regularly threatened the other members. One of them was smuggled out of Azkaban! Sirius Black was sent to prison without a trial. We need to do it right this time and that means arresting everyone bearing Voldemort's mark and putting them on trial. We have a fully vetted Wizengamot, mostly promoted Magical Law Councilmembers. I promise it will be fair. In fact, I'm glad you're here, it makes finding witnesses easier."

" _I'm_ glad you said that actually, since the witnesses have just arrived. If you could just tell me how to get to the holding cells from the Atrium, I'll bring them down." She canceled the charm on her pendant as she memorized the directions. She returned to the Atrium to find a lost but determined Leilani, Draco, Professor McGonagall and a near-life size portrait of Albus Dumbledore, escorted by half a dozen baffled looking aurors.

Jo wrapped Leili in a hug, "Thanks for coming."

Leili rubbed Jo's back both to brace and comfort, "You know I'll come when you call. We got to Draco right as the Aurors arrived to arrest him. McGonagall talked them into standing down since we were heading here anyway. I'm not sure what use he'll be, a Death Eater testifying on behalf of another Death Eater? I'm not sure how well that's gonna go over."

"We'll see. Come on, we gotta go see Marcus before the trial starts. By the way… Dumbledore?"

Leili shrugged, "He wanted to come."

On level ten, down the hall from the courtrooms Draco was ushered into a holding cell. He bit back the automatic response of "My Father Will Hear About This" because there his father was: in a cell, looking more bedraggled than Draco had ever seen him. The line wouldn't have done him any good now anyway; Lucius had been all but convicted of Death Eater Activities and he didn't want to rely on his father's name anymore.

During Marcus' trial Jo spoke passionately about how yes, her fiancé was _technically_ once a Death Eater but only because he'd been forced into it. She spoke of how he had tried to escape it but like Draco had been dragged into a life that he hadn't wanted. She spoke of how he would burn the world down for her and how she couldn't be happier with him in her life. He was a good man and a loyal one and she couldn't ask for anyone better to share her life with. She spoke of the time it took to understand what he had done and why he had done it and how she had come to forgive him. He was a Slytherin and he was cunning and he had ambitions but those were not bad traits to value or have. His cunning had saved her life and his ambitions were to be better than his parents, how could they fault him for that?

Leili spoke of the Slytherpuff Alliance and how much good it did for the students and how it had been he who had approached them with the idea. She spoke of how she had come to forgive his crimes against her best friend, how the grain of rice that had tipped the scale in his favor was how much he loved Jo. He loved her more than his own life, as he'd broken her heart to save her from Voldemort's schemes, a choice that surely would have meant his death if anyone had found out.

Professor McGonagall spoke of how he'd been a good student and was an even better teacher. She too spoke of the Alliance and how he still fostered goodwill between the hated and the over looked. He always had a kind word and a moment to spare for his students—no matter their house or family ties.

Upstairs, owls flooded Minister Shaklebolt's office with student testimonials.

Draco explained how he'd come to turn his back on his parents and the life they had chosen for him. He told how, as a student, he'd looked down his nose at the Alliance but the Alliance had still come to his assistance as a Death Eater, even if it had only been Marcus acting in everyone's best interest.

Jo and Leili walked Dumbledore's portrait forward like the Eater-Island Moai when Draco yielded the floor.

"We must not mistake those in the paintings for actual people, Miss Montgomery," one woman said.

"No, you're right, but the subject spends a lot of time and energy and magic teaching their portraits and this is _Dumbledore_ we're talking about. If you could just hear him out…"

"I'll allow it," the head of the Wizengamot said.

Dumbledore's portrait was as eloquent as Dumbledore himself would have been, waxing poetic about how they had allowed Severus Snape to work at Hogwarts after the first War and Marcus' situation was not so very different. He spoke of no evidence that Marcus had done anything wrong while he acted as a member of the Death Eaters; he had neither hurt nor killed anyone and we all did things we regret. His speech went on for some time and by the time he was done, tears misted the eyes of many a member.

Finally Marcus was brought into the courtroom. He was pushed into a chair with heavy iron manacles on the arms and legs to secure his wrists and ankles.

"You sit here before us accused of Treason. You hearby give your consent to be interrogated under the influence of the potion Veritaserum?"

"Yes."

One of the Aurors standing guard took the little green vial from the head of the Wizengamot, they tipped his head back and shoved their fingers into his cheeks to force open a mouth that had already voiced his perfect willingness to comply.

"HEY!" Jo snapped. "He said he'd do it! You don't have to force him like a dog you've caught chewing on your slippers! Asshole!"

Ignoring her, the Auror squeezed three drops down Marcus' throat. Veritaserm wasn't infallible, it could be countered by an antidote or someone particularly skilled in Occlumency or if the potion had been tainted or brewed incorrectly. They waited two minutes before resuming the questioning.

"You are Marcus Jaime Flint?"

"Yes."

"You reside with your fiancée Jocelyn Montgomery?" They rattled off the apartment's address. His fingers stretched and strained to caress hers.

"When not at Hogwarts, yes."

Jo dropped to the floor beside his chair, her head angled so he could skim his fingertips through her hair. She threaded her fingers over the arm of the chair to twine with his.

"You did knowingly join the followers of Lord Voldemort AKA Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr.?"

"Yes…" Marcus paused briefly, wondering if he should add "unwillingly." But he decided he didn't want to make it look like he was making excuses or claiming influence of an unforgivable curse.

"Do you understand the charge against you?"

"Yes."

"Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

"I did it because I wasn't presented with a choice. My parents were Death Eaters; they expected me to join them. I stayed at Hogwarts for as long as I could but I was going to end up a Death Eater if I liked it or not. I did my best to stay on their good side for the sake of people I care about and that meant not 'rocking the boat' as Jocelyn likes to say. I did my best to not to hurt, kill or endanger anyone. I will never excuse my actions, for there is no excuse, but I will have it known that I did not then and do not now subscribe to Voldemort's beliefs." He looked at Jo and even the blind could see how completely mad for her he was, how his face changed into something softer, kinder. "My fiancée is a muggle-born woman. She is a Hufflepuff, I am a Slytherin; we should hate each other. We don't. The trait our houses share is loyalty. I am loyal to her. I am loyal to the Slytherpuff Alliance. I am loyal to my students. Despite the mark on my arm, I am _not_ loyal to Voldemort."

"Will you give us names of those who _are_ true Death Eaters?" Amelia Bones asked. Susan Bones was her niece, and she'd heard the stories about a strange alliance between Hufflepuff and Slytherin.

"Yes."

"Very well, all in favor of conviction?"

Approximately a dozen members were not convinced of Marcus' innocence but majority rules. The gavel banged twice, "The accused is acquitted of the charges and is free to go." The manacles released automatically and Marcus leapt to his feet, pulling Jo into his arms and lifting her feet off the ground as he swung her around.

They retreated to the stands to wait for Draco's trial, also conducted under Veritaserum. It would go similarly and he too would be released, but by a narrower majority. His family was too well known, his father had escaped punishment last time by claiming Curse Influence and some members wanted to make an example of him but Amelia Bones was the deciding vote and she voted he too be released; Dumbledore's portrait was very convincing.

XXX

**December 31st 1998**

The day after Jo's Christmas-time wedding to Marcus he tried to keep her from seeing what was written in the Prophet about it.

It had been a lovely wedding, Jo's sister had been a bridesmaid and her brother had been a groomsman. It had been the best day of Marcus' life.

But that's not what Rita Skeeter said.

Somehow, she had found out about the skull and snake scar on his arm.

He had tried to get rid of it. He'd even gone to Leilani's tattoo artist to cover it up but no ink would touch it. So he'd resigned himself to the scar, surrounding it with an abstract sleeve tattoo: splashes of color that swirled up from his wrists and curled up over his shoulders meeting in the middle between his shoulder blades; it disguised the skull and snake scar even if it didn't actually cover it.

She knew and that's what she wrote about. Not Jocelyn's dress or how her mother had cried, but his stupid scar.

"Rita Skeeter, gossip correspondent for the Daily Prophet, had the privilege yesterday of attending one of the most talked about weddings of the year. Jocelyn Montgomery married Marcus Flint, supposed former Death Eater and one of He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named's trusted supporters. Why a so-called Champion of Hufflepuff would marry an allegedly 'reformed' Death Eater remains a mystery. Perhaps this Hufflepuff is not what she seems. _What_ do the sleeves of her white gown mask? Another Dark Mark?"

It went on from there. Of course, the article was factually incorrect on several levels. For one, their wedding was actually one of the least talked about. Until now, only a few people had known about the brand on his arm and the wedding party had been small, only Jocelyn's family and friends were invited. Ergo, nothing to talk about, it was just another wedding.

For another, Rita Skeeter had not been invited, and for all appearances, had not been present.

Marcus had no contact with his parents, he wasn't even sure they had survived the war and what cousins he had who were even mostly decent people, he had never known due to their having been disowned. He was on a quest to find them, but his family records were less obvious than the Black's were. The Black Family kept their family tree on the walls, the Flints didn't; so tracking down wayward cousins who didn't want to be found was harder than expected.

He hid the article from Jocelyn because they were supposed to be on their honeymoon and he didn't want to spoil it for her.

Of course, she saw it anyway.

Her exact words were, "She's a bug, and someday, somebody's gonna squish 'er like one." And then she chewed the hell out of him for trying to hide it. "Why did you hide it?" she asked, a touch demandingly.

"I was trying to protect you!" he defended.

"For Merlin's sake, Marcus," she deflated. She was still annoyed, but less so now that she understood what had been going through his brain. She took his face in her hands, "I don't _want_ you to protect me! Watch my back. Fight at my side. Don't try to protect me; I don't need it. It's thinking like that that had you not telling me about being threatened into the Death Eaters."

He'd been floored when she had asked him to marry her. For one thing, he'd betrayed her trust so badly by becoming a Death Eater (not that he had _wanted_ to or had really any choice in it) that he hadn't expected her to ever forgive him or really trust him ever again. For another, he had always planned on _his_ asking _her,_ not the other way around. He loved her, more than anything else in his life and after recovering from the shock, of course he'd said yes.

Leilani and Fred didn't seem to mind that Jo had upstaged their "official" wedding by proposing to him. Leilani, for one, had been ecstatic, there had been quite a lot of squealing and happy shrieking; Marcus swore his ears had rung for a week. She'd hugged him and Fred had shaken his hand and then George had fed him a ton-tongue-toffee.

"And for god's sake, _don't_ call Rita Skeeter up to correct her, it'll only make it worse."

He blinked, that's exactly what he'd been thinking of doing.

XXX

(Credit for the _wingardium leviosa_ joke by tumblr user "Argumate".)

**May 7th, 1999**

Leili sat up in bed, a new baby girl asleep in Fred's arms. She'd gone into labor three weeks earlier than expected. The baby was small, but average for "late preterm babies". She was one of the lucky ones, she breathed and ate well on her own and was only slightly jaundiced; nothing a little filtered sunlight wouldn't cure.

They were trying to name her. Their first daughter: a redhead, like her daddy. He was sitting at Leili's feet rocking the baby slowly as he mulled. "Let's name her _Wingardium Leviosa_!" He said, eyes sparkling with mischief.

"What? No!" Leili said automatically, and then her curiosity got the better of her, "Why?"

"So that when her teachers call her name, things will go flying around the room."

Leilani laughed, of _course_ that was why. She was pleased that the war hadn't cost Fred his sense of humor. He had a great big grin on his face. "That's brilliant, but _no_. How about Paige? Maybe she'll be a trickster like you and George and then _you_ can say she's named Paige because she's a _page_ out of your own book."

It was his turn to blink at her, "That's terrible. _I_ _love it_!"

Leili couldn't help the snort the preceded her chuckle.

They had gotten "officially" married after the end of the war, June 15th. It had been a moderately large affair, in part because Fred had so much family—Aunt Muriel had _not_ been invited. They did _not_ tell their parents that they were already married. They _did_ have a talk with the priest who "married" them to make sure they weren't confusing any legal nonsense by doing it this way. Of course the whole thing was moot when Molly came looking for them and over heard about half the conversation. The shrieking could be heard around the world.

"YOU'RE MARRIED?!" she cried from behind them.

Leili damn near jumped out her skin in surprise, "Merlin and Morgana, don't sneak up on me like that! Jeez!"

"Hi Mum." Fred said guilelessly.

"Don't you 'hi, mum' _me,_ Fred Gideon Weasley! How long have you been married?!"

Leili turned a slight grimace on Fred, "We almost made it."

"November 15th."

"Seven months," she whispered, shocked. Then louder, "SEVEN _MONTHS?!"_

"At least I'm not pregnant?" Leili offered.

"You're pregnant?" came a surprised voice from behind Molly. Ginny had heard the shouting and come to investigate.

"Shit!" she swore softly while Fred laughed his ass off beside her. "No, Ginny, Ginny come here!" She picked up her skirts and hustled after the sixteen year old before she could start spreading it around. "Ginny! Ginny, come back!" She ended up chasing after her, leaving Fred to deal with his mother.

"Honestly, Mum, it's not a big deal. And if you listened to Potterwatch you'd have known months ago, I proposed to her on-air."

The look on her face had the preacher pressing her gently into a chair before she fainted dead away. "I'm going to have a heart attack..." Molly mused to herself.

At last Leili returned, sister-in-law in tow. She scooped up her skirts and crouched in front of Molly, "Mrs. Weasley, I love your son. Yes, I married your son. Yes I did it in secret because I wanted to know that if I died in the war we would have had at least that much time together and my only regret would have been that we didn't get more. Yes I did not tell you because when we met so much had just happened and we didn't want to add to the burden. We put this sham wedding together for _you._ For you and for my parents who, yes, also don't know—unless my sister told them and they're keeping it quiet from me. We did it for you guys because we didn't want you to feel as though you had missed something. I _promise_ only Fred and George knew." She conveniently left out the other three people who had been at the original wedding, no sense in making this any worse.

"Oh no, we all knew." Ginny said brightly.

Or not.

"What?" all three of them asked.

"Percy guessed right away after seeing you in St. Mungo's, and I remembered seeing your ring when you came to visit the room of requirement! I didn't realize who you were but I heard the Potterwatch proposal. Bill must have known you were dating because Fred brought you to the wedding. That just leaves Ron and Charlie and Dad, they might not know."

Fred was still laughing his head off, even harder now and Leili had to fight to keep a straight face, "I guess we were idiots to try and keep it quiet, huh?"

The preacher cleared his throat, happy to have faded into the background while all this family drama was happening, "Shall we do this, then?"

Fred helped his wife to her feet and kissed her soundly, earning hyperventilation from his mother.

"Look at it this way, Mum," they heard Ginny say. "You can preemptively plan Ron and Hermione's wedding!" This did not make the hyperventilation stop.

As Fred had once promised, everyone was allowed to wear what they wanted. The guests were told not to buy anything special to wear, just pull something out of their closets and show up. Some showed up in t-shirts and jeans and felt silly when the bride walked down the isle in her dress, white lace over satin with a long, flowing skirt dip-dyed in three main colors: yellow at mid-shin that darkened briefly to orange before becoming dark pink and transitioning into purple with just a hint of midnight blue at the edge. They felt a little bit better when the best man wore his quidditch leathers and had the bride dying of laughter. The groom's tie matched her dress, his suit a dark teal that, well at least it didn't _clash_.

They did their first Husband and Wife dance to "You stole my cauldron" at Fred's request and she nearly died laughing because she'd sung it in the car the day she realized she loved him. She danced with all his siblings, some twice. Ginny had the pleasure of a Polka as did Bill, Percy got a Waltz to "Andante, Andante" and she didn't cry, no not even a little bit, that's sweat you see on her cheeks, not tears thankyouverymuch. She danced with Charlie and she had to remind Ron how to waltz because he was so stiff they might as well have not been movie, much to Hermione's amusement. George led her in something exhausting and it was a beautiful evening.

They spent their honeymoon in Hawaii, swimming with dolphins, picnic-ing on the beach (they did not have sex on the beach because that’s how you get arrested for public indecency and besides, _sand._ ) and just enjoying being able to breathe without the threat of hell on earth hanging over their heads all the time. Now here they were, eight months later with a relatively unexpected addition.

"Paige Weasley," Fred mused, "Middle name?"

"She was born at dawn so Aurora? Paige Aurora Weasley," Leili offered.

XXX

**Dec. 1st, 1999**

Jo lay back against her pillows, her firstborn swaddled in a blanket and propped upright in her lap. Amanda Jane Flint. She had her daddy's pitch dark hair and her Aunty Jillian's artic blue eyes. She had her mommy's dimples, though. Jo ran her fingertips over Amanda's hair; she was a month old yesterday, born on Jo's favorite holiday, Halloween.

"I could fit the whole world in my palms right now," Marcus said reverently.

"That is literally impossible, you do know that right?" Jo replied archly.

Marcus wrapped one hand around Jo's chin and the other around the back of their daughter's head, "Are you sure?"

Jo rolled her eyes and smiled, "I'm not sure if I want to kiss you or throw you off a bridge."

"Can I pick?"

She kissed him.

XXX

**December 1999**

Over the winter break, Headmistress McGonagall re-placed the Defense Against the Dark Arts want-ad in the Daily Prophet.

A week after placing the ad, Minerva got an unexpected visitor to her office. Harry Potter.

McGonagall was pleased to see Harry; this job would normalize his life, just as it had done for Marcus, if not even more so. It wouldn't be fair to the other applicants if she hired Harry without the formality of an interview, but she knew when he walked in the door that between his personal experiences with the dark arts and his Auror training, he was the perfect fit for the job.

So they went over the kinds of things he would teach his students, year by year. She found that he tackled the curriculum much as Professor Lupin had, with some minor, but notable, influences from his year of being taught by Barty Crouch JR, in the guise of Auror Moody, as well as his year teaching his fellow students in the Room of Requirement.

She asked why he was leaving the Aurors. He told her that while being an Auror was worthwhile, it didn't make him happy. When he had met Moody the first time, being an Auror seemed like the best way to both capitalize on and escape the fame that had been thrust upon him at a year old. But now, having done the training and been on the job, he found that it just didn't fit.

He could do the job.

He could be good at the job.

But the job wasn't good for him.

After spending more than seven years as the object of a Dark Wizard's attention, one year getting into that Wizard's twisted mind, another year of training and 6 months of actual Auror work, he found it was a feeling he didn't want to return to.

Professor Merrythought would finish out the year with her students and retire in September, allowing Harry to take her seat.

XXX

**YEAR INDETERMINATE**

As an Auror in the Magizoology office, Jo hunted down people mistreating magical animals, most of the time it was something like a puffskein puppy mill or someone raising fire crabs and killing them for the jewels on their shells but sometimes she'd get to travel to new and exotic places.

For those trips she'd pack Amanda up, stick her in a Baby Backpack—"Muggle invention, all the rage these days for hands free baby carrying," she'd tell people, fighting the urge to roll her eyes—and, assuming Marcus wasn't working, the three of them would go off on a grand adventure that at one point or another saw Jo arresting someone.

They got to see new places and introduce Amanda to all sorts of animals; they even met a young Graphorn. Amanda had gone stock still at first sight but warmed up to the creature when it tickled her face with its mouth tentacles. More craft minded than her sister, Jillian made her niece a stuffed animal Graphorn just the right size for cuddles.

They took so many photos, partly because Marcus had never really had family photos before, not like this, so he wanted to capture every single moment. When Marcus _did_ have to work, Jo and Amanda went on their own adventures and Artemis took the photos back to Marcus when they were within flying distance, otherwise Jo attached them to self-timed port-keys that frequently landed in the mashed potato bowl at feast time. It wasn't always potato; sometimes it was yams or something equally messy and Marcus always wrote to tell her what her photos had landed in. There was one time Peeves stole the letter and the photos and Marcus had to chase him down to get them back—she was still laughing at that one.

Jo missed him when they were apart like this but she was glad to spend the time with her daughter. If Amanda was destined to be an only child, it wasn't for her parents' lack of trying. Jo was of the opinion that reunion sex was the best.

XXX

**2000**

Waiting at a counter of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, picking up Paige before the shop got too busy, Leili picked up a Daily Prophet open to the gossip page.

"Oh! Oh _ew_!" she cried in horror and disgust.

"What is it?" Fred asked.

Wordlessly she handed him the paper.

He read, "Rita Skeeter, gossip correspondent, has it on good authority that celebrated wand maker Ollivander's assistant Leilani Akina-Weasley has been hiding her husband's death at the hands of Death Eaters for two years. My source confides she has done this with the help of George Weasley, brother to the Late Fred Weasley, co-founder of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Sources close to the family say that in public, Fred is nothing more than a well crafted illusion spell and in private, the witch has kept up appearances by having children with her late boyfriend's _twin brother_."

"Why Leilani, I never knew!" Fred quipped with a teasing grin.

"I am gonna jinx that woman from here to high heaven!" She seethed. "Where does she get off on saying that?!"

Little Paige came toddling into the room, drawn by the sound of her mother's fury. "Mumma?" She asked.

Fred scooped her up and together they descended on Leili with hugs and kisses and blown raspberries. "Furthermore," the article continued, "it is the belief of this writer that daughter Paige Weasley is not only George's illegitimate child but also a squib!"

"Paige is two years old, you _wing-nut_!" Leili growled at the paper.

Fred finished the paragraph, "It is unknown how Angelina Johnson-Weasley is taking the news."

"Probably better than me," Leili remarked. "Alright, we gotta go. We'll see you tonight."

Fred gave her a peck on the lips and blew a raspberry on Paige's cheek.

"You ready to go see Amanda?" Leili asked. Jo's daughter was almost 6 months younger than Paige so they played together a lot. They were thick as thieves and just as trick minded as Fred and George, which made them great friends of Teddy Lupin. Teddy had proclaimed the little girls as his little sisters and Harry was pretty sure they three would be the next Marauders.

Look out Hogwarts, here they come, brave, intrepid, and then some.

XXX

Ollivander

**2001**

That morning, the newspapers read: The Wizarding World woke up to a shock today, with the news that famed wand maker Garrick Ollivander died last night at the age of 93. Ollivander has been the leading wand maker since his appearance on the scene in the early 20th century. He was predeceased by a wife and daughter and is survived by apprentice Leilani Akina-Weasley. It is widely believed that the 22 year old will inherit the business. A funeral will be held tomorrow at 11 o'clock in Diagon Alley.

"Most unfortunate," a woman said, as she finished reading the obituary. "Most unfortunate. And at 93 no less! Why he was still quite young! Quite young."

"I'm afraid Mr. Ollivander never fully recovered from the treatments of the war. He _was_ held captive for a year, after all. A year at the hands of You-Know-Who, it's a miracle he survived," the woman's companion added. "Have you met the new girl?"

"No, but my brother has; his son is starting school in September, they said she was very nice. My nephew liked her, asked her if she knew Harry Potter!" They laughed. "That man is his hero, practically worships him. Asks everybody he meets if they knew the Boy Who Lived. He couldn't stop talking about it when she said that she did, in fact, know Mr. Potter. Told him that Mr. Potter had bought his first wand from that very shop, from Mr. Ollivander himself! Said she was married to Mr. Potter's brother-in-law. She made that little boy's day."

XXX

**September 2001ish**

Marcus had been promoted to Head of Slytherin House, he'd tried to protest that he wasn't worthy but Headmistress McGonagall had just fixed him with a pursed lip stare over the rims of her glasses. It had shut him up pretty quickly.

It was the beginning of a new term and the Feast had just ended. He considered giving some sort of "Welcome to Slytherin!" speech to the new kids but decided against it. He wasn't a speech person.

He was making rounds through the common room before heading off to his own bed when he heard it. He followed the sound of tears and came across a newly sorted boy sobbing his little heart out in a corner.

A seventh year girl met him partway there, "I've tried getting him to cheer up, but he doesn't want anything to do with me. He just cries harder."

"I'll take care of it, thank you, Emily. You'll get your new buddy this week, are you ready?"

Emily beamed, "So ready!"

He smiled back, a rare occurrence when he was her age but a much more common one now. "Off with you now. Go on, go study something."

"It's the first day of school!"

"All the more reason you should study something," he teased.

She huffed and stuck her tongue out at him before scampering off to her dorm.

He shook his head, both at her and at himself—thank god all the time turners had been destroyed and he didn't have to worry about his school aged self skipping into the future; he'd give himself a heart attack and then Amanda wouldn't exist.

With a groan, Marcus sat himself down across from the firstie. He didn't say anything.

Eventually the kid looked up and demanded, "Go Away!"

"I could do that, sure. I'd be derelict in my duties as your head of house, but I could do that." He made a big show of getting up—he had a two year old at home so his drama was still amped up to about 11.

"What's… der…deralicked?"

Marcus paused, "Derelict: shamefully neglectful." Jocelyn teased him about his vocabulary, but he couldn't live with her and _not_ pick up some things.

"The other kids _hate_ me now. I only just got here and they already hate me all because I was sorted into stupid Slytherin!"

"They don't hate you; they don't know you. Do you want to know why you were sorted into Slytherin? Because you value cunning, and you probably have ambitions and you will use your brain to get what you want. You will strive to be the best you can be and you will watch the world burn to save someone who belongs to you. …I helped set fire to the world to protect my wife and she nearly killed me for it. The other students may make us out to be villains but we have more in common with them than they realize. Later this week, after I get to know you a little better, I'm going to introduce you to someone, someone to help you adjust to life here. I promise they will not hate you, or think you're evil. Ok? Now, go get some sleep." He tousled the boy's hair and headed off to his own bed.

At the end of the week, he gathered the first and seventh year students to the room of requirement while Professor Sprout, still going strong as Hufflepuff's Head, brought the same year Hufflepuffs. Seventh year Slytherins were paired with first year Hufflepuffs and second year Hufflepuffs were paired with first year Slytherins.

When the seventh year student graduated, their buddy was re-paired the following year and so on and so forth. This was the system he and Jocelyn and Leilani had devised that day in the Three Broomsticks and it worked pretty well.

In the early days it had been the three of them who paired the buddies, and as they prepared to graduate they passed the baton to the head boys and girls but that hadn't always worked 100%. After the Alliance became a more open secret, Marcus had taken back the reigns. His first year of teaching he'd paired them by himself but found it easier to include Professor Sprout in the process.

He'd been shocked to learn that she had only the faintest knowledge of the Alliance—mainly that it existed. She had wondered more than once about the sudden influx of Slytherin-Hufflepuff friendships but didn't realize there was an official buddy system going on behind the scenes.

Marcus cleared his throat, "Welcome to the Slytherpuff Alliance. Some of you know how this works, some of you don't. Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, meet your new best friends. We have some suggested pairings but you don't have to stay where we put you. We don't have an even number of students so there will be a bit of doubling up."

Professor Sprout called out names and the new buddies formed little groups. There was the occasional switching when someone knew that _this_ first year would really be better off with _that_ person. The 11 year old was shuffled over to their new-new buddy and the 17 year old was free to align with someone else.

"Professor Flint!" the no longer crying firstie called, running up, dragging a seventh year Hufflepuff behind him. "This is Fern! She likes all the same things I do! And she doesn't think I'm evil!" His face and voice were full of rapturous wonder while Fern looked only slightly embarrassed.

"Welcome to the Alliance, Kevin."

XXX

(I got the idea for this from a post by Tumblr users the-evil-twin and autisticsimon. The drawing I saw is [here](https://artofpan.tumblr.com/post/133126975930/harry-potter-headcannon) )

**December 2003**

When Paige was four years old, at Christmas her Gramma Molly presented Uncle George and Aunt Ginny with her traditional Weasley Sweater. (Guaranteed to be warm and cozy, best paired with tea and biscuits. A sure-fire pick-me-up when you're feeling blue. Patent Pending.)

As they pulled on the soft wool, the family fell into peals of laughter. George's sweater stopped half-way down his chest! And Ginny's nearly reached her knees! George struck a pose while his mom snapped a quick picture with the camera she had been gifted.

Ginny pulled off the too big sweater and held it out to her brother, but George grinned at her and said, "I wear it better, and you know it."

"Oh, George!" Molly said with a grin.

That year, Paige's family grew by two. Fred and Leilani welcomed twins, Pele Annabelle with trademark Weasley red hair and a boy who was born, as his mother had been, with downy gold-blonde hair. They named him Leolani George, Leo for short.

XXX

**2004**

It was family dinner day with the Weasley clan. It would also go down in Weasley Family History as the day the 'no cell phones at the table' rule was introduced. Arthur, against his wife's better judgment, had recently procured a new Motorola Razr.

He loved it. He was baffled by it to be sure and was constantly coming to the kids for help with his new contraption.

Not-so-secretly and almost immediately after getting it, he had taken it apart. "Just to see how it works, Molly-dear!"

Molly, of course, didn't buy _that_ for a second, he'd said the same thing about that car and the next thing she'd known, three of their children had flown it to Surrey and back!

XXX

**2008**

The v-necked top Jo wore revealed part of a long, white, jagged edged scar. Amanda was 9 when she asked about it, "Mom? How'd that happen?"

Jo rubbed at the scar, as though if she rubbed it hard enough it might go away. "I was about 15 and Hogwarts hosted something called the Triwizard Tournament—it was a big contest with three parts meant to be played by three students from different schools—and the third event was a maze the champions had to go through to reach a trophy hidden somewhere in the middle. This Tournament was different from previous tournaments by one simple fact: someone had rigged the judge, the Goblet of Fire, to allow a fourth champion to compete. You know who the fourth student was?"

"You?" Amanda guessed.

"I'm flattered!" Jo laughed. "Try again."

Amanda thought about it for a minute, trying to remember all the stories her parents had told her over the years. It came to her, "Uncle Harry."

"Yes ma'am! The Boy Who Lived himself, and as usual, someone was trying to kill him. Your Aunt Leili and I were watching with the rest of the school when I had a stroke of what could probably be called either bravery or _extreme_ stupidity and I summoned the trophy. I realized after I had done it that while I had stopped Harry and Cedric from falling into whatever trap the cup would drop them into, that trap was now hurtling towards _us_.

"Turned out, the cup was a portkey and we were transported to a graveyard in Little Hangleton, Yorkshire. We found ourselves _surrounded_ by Death Eaters, one of them cut open my arm," she rolled up her sleeve to show her daughter the fine white scar, "and used the blood he collected, as well as the bones from the grave I standing on and the dude's friggin _hand_ , his whole _hand_ that he cut off at the wrist, to revive Voldemort, the darkest wizard of our time."

Amanda's eyes grew big and round as her mother detailed the drama of her youth.

"When we tried to escape, I was caught by a severing spell and Leili was thrown into a headstone. That's what caused the scar, the severing spell. If I had been alone, I probably would have died, but Leili saved us. When we got back to the school your dad _pounced_ on the death eater—masquerading as a teacher—who had rigged the judge and the trophy. Beat him bloody."

Amy laughed, "Go Dad!"

Marcus came around the corner and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was still dark but her eyes had turned hazel before her first birthday. Around his right wrist he wore a roughly braided friendship bracelet Amanda had made when she was seven. "What are we talking about?"

"The time you pummeled a Death Eater, rescuing Mom and Aunt Leili from _Certain Death_!"

"Bu-bu-bu-bum! Woooooo~!" Jo imitated _The Labyrinth_ 's False Alarms.

XXX

**Sept. 1st, 2010**

"Here we are, King's Cross Station, platform 9 ¾," Leili said, trying not to show her daughter, now 11, how much she was going to miss her. She didn't want to embarrass her unnecessarily.

Pele and Leo, now 7, were holding hands and trying not to cry. They were so used to having Paige and Amanda around, the house was going to feel awfully empty without them. Dark haired Amanda noticed how down the twins seemed and nudged her best friend with her elbow.

Paige wrapped the twins in a great big hug and promised, "Soon as we get settled I'll steal a Hogwarts toilet seat and send it back to you. Ok?"

Fred began to howl with laughter. It was the exact thing he and George had offered to do for Ginny. _Their_ mother, however, had frowned upon the idea.

Grinning like fiends, the twins nodded enthusiastically. Paige glanced at her mother who simply said, "If you can figure out how to get it home, _without_ getting caught, I won't stop you."

"Really?!" Paige gasped and suddenly a whole world of tricks opened before her.

"I'm sure your dad can give you a few suggestions," Leili suggested with a wicked smile and a glance at her husband.

Fred wiped a tear from his eye; he couldn't wait to tell George about this.

Jo leaned over to Marcus, hand out, "You owe me twenty. Pay up."

Marcus rolled his eyes and passed over the Muggle money. They'd been betting on their daughter and adopted niece since Leilani had introduced the girls as babies.

XXX

**September, 2010**

Paige and Amanda sat down in their first DADA class. Amanda was expecting her dad to walk through the door but instead it was Paige's Uncle Harry.

Headmistress McGonagall had decided that it would be best for Marcus _not_ to teach his daughter's class, to avoid any whisper of favoritism which would hurt both him and Amanda, so even though it was Marcus' turn to teach the first years, he and Harry switched time tables for this hour.

Harry walked in wearing one of Mrs. Weasley's sweaters and the whispers started. He smiled as he came around and leaned on the front of his desk, not unlike Dumbledore had done as a young professor.

He used to hate the stares and the whispers but he found now he kind of enjoyed it. He sipped a cup of tea as he waited for the whispers to stop. It helped that the whispers were well intended now, where they hadn't always been before.

"Got that out of your systems? Brilliant."

Someone in the back raised a hand.

"Yeah?"

"Are you really married to the Harpies' Weasley?!"

"Weasley?" someone else whispered. "Like Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?"

He grinned, not many eleven year olds made the connection between Quidditch and sweets. "Yes, I am Harry Potter, yes I am married to Ginny Weasely of the Harpies. And yes, I can get free sweets at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes." The latter was something he only took advantage of when teaching Patronuses. Otherwise, he paid for everything. "And yes, I am Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived and Chosen One who defeated the dark wizard Voldemort. And yes, I am your Professor."

Paige waved at him, not a big wave, a small one, just to say hello. He raised his mug and nodded to her and to Amanda. Amanda looked vaguely relieved, though he couldn't say if it was because he didn't make a big deal over knowing her or if it was simply that she was glad she wasn't in her dad's class.

XXX

**Summer 2010**

When Paige and Amanda returned home for summer they taught Paige's Muggle grandma how to play quidditch. Between all of them they had almost enough players since someone (Leilani) had to sit behind Grandma on the broom. Over the summer they brought in various cousins to play the missing spot.

XXX  
  


**2014**

Three years before Albus Potter came to Hogwarts, Pele and Leo began their first year at school. They watched his brother navigate the hallways and stuck like little mismatched burrs to Paige and Amanda who would let the twins help with pranks; like the day they rolled a homemade glue-bomb across the floor of the most traveled hallway and watched as people took two steps and promptly walked out of first their shoes, and then their socks before coming to an abrupt halt or face planting entirely as they lost their balance.


	141. Cursed Child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no intention of re-writing the entirety of Cursed Child. For the most part, I liked it. There were obviously some things I'd change, and some things I thought were dumb, but over all I did enjoy it. So here, a Neglected Version of some events. FYI, though I never show it, the trolley witch is just an ordinary witch, none of that demon from the black lagoon nonsense. I dunno what they were thinking on that one. Personally, I support either Scorbus or ScoRose, I can see either one happening but I don’t address it here.

**September 2020**

_After Albus uses the time-turner twice:_

"Albus Severus Potter, what in the name of Merlin's pants do you think you're doing?" Jo asked, arms akimbo, staring down at the young Potter. Jo had come to guest-lecture in both Magical Creatures and Defense against the Dark Arts.

"What do you mean?" Albus scowled. Jo was related by only the flimsiest of reasons; she was his uncle's wife's best friend. Somehow that made her his aunt, he'd never had reason to resent it before.

"You are fiddling with time, aren't you?"

"What do you mean? Of course not! Time turners were all destroyed."

"I'm aware; I was there. But! I am _uniquely_ versed in what Time-turning feels like. Your aunt Hermione used one in her third year; the déjà vu was absurd."

"Scorpius, you're not encouraging this are you?"

"No!" the little blonde boy blurted, Albus' Aunt Jo kinda scared him. Not like Albus' Aunt Leilani did, though. There were rumors that she'd killed people when she'd been in school, but if you tried to ask her about, she just got real quiet and then she'd smile this too bright, too wide smile that was somehow brittle and tell you that you shouldn't listen to rumormongers. Then, of course, when you weren't looking, Jo would come up and smack you upside the head with her book.

XXX

What the boys saw:

After humiliating Cedric Diggory at the Triwizard Tournament, they returned to their own time to find Harry Potter was more than 20 years dead, Albus had never been born and Scorpius was the so-called Scorpion King. Cedric is the Death Eater who killed Neville.

What actually happened:

Jo, disguised as a grindylow, was swimming after Harry when she saw Cedric rising through the water. She made the choice to continue after Harry, trusting Leili to help Cedric.

Leili watched in horror as Cedric ballooned and the crowd laughed. She stood up and made her way out of the stands. "Hang on Cedric, I'll get you down from there!" she called. Cedric managed to lodge himself in a tree, stopping himself from floating further away. " _Finite,"_ she cast.

Cedric quickly deflated. "Thanks," he called back. He hopped down out of the tree, "I lost my wand."

"I'll help you find it. You ok?"

"I've just been humiliated in front of three schools and my parents, no, I am not okay."

"That's fair."

Harry still came in second in the task since he felt the need to rescue everyone—some things stayed the same, no matter how you meddled.

In the third task, Jo summoned the cup and things proceeded as according to history, it was as the girls made their escape from that Graveyard that things changed.

"Leili, get to the cup!" Jo shouted. After a very brief pause, Leilani changed course and ran for the cup, dully aware of a searing pain in the right side of her ribcage.

Jo got up to follow but a severing spell knocked her off her feet. A bleeding gash opened diagonally across her chest. Jo tried repeatedly to stand, failing miserably as she hemorrhaged.

As she reached for the cup Leilani turned, looking for Jo. She couldn't leave without her. Instead of seeing her best friend running like her tail was on fire, she found her collapsed on the ground. " _Jo_!" she called.

Jo looked up, pushing herself to her knees in the grass, glancing from Leili to the Death Eater behind her. Pressing her wand arm across her chest, she tried to stem the flow of blood. Leili stood frozen for the space of a heartbeat, maybe two, though it felt like minutes, before the Death Eater exploded into a thousand pieces and a fine pink mist. She didn't have the time to process what she had just done.

Across the Graveyard, Voldemort pointed his wand at Jo, " _Avada Kedavra_!"

" _ACCIO_ JO!" Leili's shout swallowed the rest of the curse.

Jo zipped through the air to Leilani who caught her, fell back, slammed her hand down on the cup and they were gone.

They landed back at school but something was wrong.

Jo wasn't breathing.

"Jo," Leili said shaking her shoulder. "JO!" The curse had been finished and it had hit its mark.

Jo was dead.

Tiny arcs of lightning flared sharply as someone touched her shoulder. A bolt of connected Leilani's arm with Mad-Eye Moody, it entered through his hand and exited out his back when he hit the ground. "Jo! Jo, wake up. Please, wake up! Please!" Hot tears rolled down her face.

"Leilani…?" A voice said by her ear.

"You're safe dear," that was Professor Sprout.

"Jo?" Leili asked, hoping that if she just kept talking, maybe Jo would hear her name and wake up. But she didn't.

"Lei…?" the first voice said again. Only one person ever called her Lei: Fred. She turned to look at him.

"She won't wake up…!" Her voice was little-girl-lost.

Fred swallowed, his own brown eyes bright, "I know."

He held out a hand, she went to take it but pulled back when she saw the sparks on her fingers, "I don't want to shock you…"

He closed the distance and took her hand anyway. He pulled her gently towards him, and she buried her face in his chest, one hand clasping his, the other holding Jo's.

If he was being shocked, he didn't show it.

She sobbed like her heart was broken, because it was. Fred held her and stroked her hair. He would never dare tell her not to cry, never shush her, never tell her it was ok, because it wasn't and never would be. He did tell her he loved her, though.

"I love you," murmured into her hair as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I love you," as he rocked her gently while her tears soaked his shirt. "I love you," as she cried herself into unconsciousness. "I love you," as he sat next to her in the hospital wing while the matron patched her up.

"What am I gonna do without her, Fred?" Leili asked after relating the whole tale to Dumbledore.

Padfoot was lying on her bed with his big blocky head on her knee. He didn't have the heart to panic her by showing her his human face and she needed the warmth of a dog right now. Plus she was absentmindedly stroking his fur and it had been _years_ since anyone had run their fingers through his hair and he was a horrible person for thinking about that right now.

"I don't know," Fred said honestly. "You've got me, though. I won't leave you."

"I'm not leaving you, either." She snorted and rolled her eyes at herself. "Jo'd say we're giving her cavities. Merlin, I miss her already. Oh my god, _what am I going to tell Jillian?_ " Tears threatened again as she was overcome with a wave of panic.

Padfoot whined and stood up on the bed to drape his paws over her shoulders and rest his chin on top of her head—as close to a human hug as he could get while he still had a tail.

When Cedric was approached later, he seized the opportunity. He joined the Death Eaters.

Leilani was horrified when she found out, but he had a plan! He knew all about the Slytherpuff Alliance and this was the perfect opportunity to do something useful. He'd pass along information to the Alliance.

They spent years like this. As the Dark Lord continued to rise, muggles, muggle-borns and those who loved them were hunted. Some went into hiding, others stayed and fought and were frequently tortured to death.

After Jo had been killed, her family moved to a small desert town a few hours away. Leilani's parents went to Hawaii, moved into the house Aloiki's parents had left the family when they had died.

Her parents had tried to convince their daughters to move with them, but Leili couldn't leave. She wouldn't leave Fred and she couldn't leave Harry. She and Jo had set out to protect that boy and by Merlin and Morgana she was going to do it.

She and Cedric exchanged coded letters, he told her where Voldemort was heading next, sometimes no more than a few minutes before he attacked. They saved as many people as they could, but sometimes they just… weren't quick enough.

Harry and Neville were killed in the Battle for Hogwarts and suddenly Cedric was stuck. He'd killed Neville. He hadn't meant to! He'd missed on purpose! But the missed spell caused the bridge to collapse and Neville had drowned.

Cedric paraded the 'kill' around to keep his cover intact but he hated himself for it. The guilt ate him up inside.

Without Jo there to stop her, to make her take a break, Leilani kept sorting the wounded into triage.

Without Jo to help her, Leilani didn't go looking for Fred.

Without Jo, the hour passed her by. It wasn't until Fred was brought into the Hall that she stopped.

When she did, the world stopped around her. Something inside her broke beyond repair. She'd carried on after Jo's murder, under the premise of "she would want me to" but when Fred had been pronounced dead after being brought into the hall, it shattered whatever had been left. She screamed as though she was being used for _crucio_ practice but she couldn't hear it above the silence in her own head.

He'd promised her he'd never leave her! He'd _promised_!

There was no Jo to turn to for help, Fred was lying broken on the floor and there was _nothing she could do_. The lightning on her skin exploded around her, arcing out into the floor, the walls, anyone who was close enough without the sense to dodge and _she didn't care_.

More than 20 years after the war had been lost, Leilani was a different person. Cedric saw it in the skirmishes the Alliance staged. In the letters they exchanged. As a student, Leilani had been good-humored and never happier than when she was with Fred. As an adult, she was subdued. Cold. Reckless.

As a _Death Eater_ , Cedric had more hope than Leilani did. He could hope that the war would someday be over and he could go back to his life, but she couldn't ever get back the things she had lost. She didn't speak to her family, "to keep them safe," she said.

She didn't have Jo to talk out of insane ideas; she came up with them herself, instead. She didn't have Fred to turn to when yet another person she knew died or went missing. She swallowed her sorrow, squashed her tears and nurtured her anger. Her anger was her lifeline, she fed it and fanned it into a sustainable flame and she used it to keep herself going.

Working with Dumbledore's Army, the Alliance passed on the list of Voldemort's horcruxes to Cedric. All but one had been destroyed. The problem was that Voldemort kept Nagini with him at all times. Cedric couldn't get near her.

Then came the day when Scorpius and Snape walked into the shrieking shack and changed everything.

Hermione tackled Scorpius, pinning him to the wall. "Make one move and your brain will be a frog and your arms will be rubber."

"He's safe," Snape declared. When Hermione didn't remove her wand from the boy's throat, he rolled his eyes, "You never could listen."

Leilani stepped out of the shadows as Ron ran in declaring, "I'm armed! And _entirely_ dangerous!" He looked anything but, with his wand the wrong way around. Losing Fred and Harry seemed to have addled his brain more than a little.

"It's my fault, it's all my fault. Mine and Albus'." Scorpius moaned around the wand in his throat.

"Dumbledore is dead," Hermione said, pressing harder.

"Not _that_ Albus," Scorpius choked out.

"You may want to sit down," Snape advised. The ensuing story was a lot for anyone to swallow.

Eventually, they all sat down.

"How's your father, Scorpius?" Leilani asked, sounding more curious than she had in years. It was a surprise even to her own ears.

"He's confused," the young Malfoy admitted. For that matter, so was _he_. The Leilani of _his_ time was still close to his dad. Not best buds or anything but close enough to have been an occasional babysitter. Close enough for Scorpius to know her kids.

"Ok. Tell us what's going on," Hermione said, all business.

Scorpius did.

At the end of the story, his audience was reeling. Hermione studied the time turner while Ron tried to digest that the whole of history lay with Neville: sweet, clumsy, overlooked, _dead_ Neville.

Hermione asked, "To be absolutely clear: in the other time, before you meddled…?"

"Voldemort is dead. Harry killed him. You're Minister for Magic."

Hermione blinked, " _Really_?"

Scorpius nodded.

"Sweet. What do I do?" Ron asked eagerly.

"You're head of the Aurors. But you're mostly focused on bringing up your kids."

"I bet their mother is hot…" Ron daydreamed.

Scorpius coughed.

Leilani took the hint. "Ron. How do you feel about Hermione?" She knew what things had been like in school; it wasn't hard to put two-and-two together to get four.

"Why?"

Scorpius explained, "You two have kids. Together. Rose and Hugo." Ron and Hermione were stunned. "Married. In Love. Everything. You are constantly astounded by it."

"Shut your mouth when you're looking at me, Weasley," Hermione snapped. Ron's jaw shut with an audible click. "And Snape? What's he like in this other world?" she asked.

"Dead, presumably," Snape said.

Scorpius' eyes widened as his mouth twisted into a grimace, "How did you know?"

"You were a little _too_ surprised to see me. How?"

"Bravely."

"Who?"

"Voldemort."

Snape scowled, "How irritating."

Scorpius looked at Leilani: she was sitting on the floor, legs straight out in front of her, crossed at the ankle, leaning back on her elbows. She was the only one who hadn't asked about the other timeline.

He understood that while the Leilani he knew scared him a little, she was nothing compared to this Leilani. There was no fond recognition from this Leilani, just cold calculations, seasoned with mild curiosity.

This Leilani was hollow; darkness collected around her. Here, her eyes were a flat, unforgiving grey. She'd cropped her hair short as a boy's and scars stood out starkly against the freckles on her nose and cheeks. This Leilani had killed, willingly killing bits of herself in the process to provide a little safety to others and if he could bring a little light back into her life, he'd do it.

"Leilani?" Scorpius asked.

"Can it possibly be worse than it is now?"

"No." In the copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ that he had read, there had been a list of the dead. He knew what this version of his best friend's aunt had been through. At least, he thought he did.

She blinked, considered the opportunity before her and then said, "No."

"No?"

She repeated herself, "No. I don't want to know. Knowing what happened in the other timeline won't help me do anything I need to do here. So, no."

Scorpius frowned; this wasn't _anything_ like how he expected Albus' aunt to be. “They're alive," he said anyway, ignoring her choice. "You and Fred got married right after the war. You've got kids. Jo Montgomery married Marcus Flint. They have a daughter." He said it so fast that she didn't have time to stop him. He thought she needed to hear this, whether she wanted to or not.

She was on her feet in a second, the anger she kept at a constant simmer rising as she did until it was boiling and she was shouting, "What did I _just_ say?! I said: _I don't want to know_! What _good_ is it if Fred is alive _there?_ He's dead _here_ , _now_ , _today_! Knowing that I could have had a different life doesn't _help_ me in this one! The fact that you think it does just proves to me that you have no fu-ck-ing _clue_ what you're actually doing. Why don't you leave the saving of the world to the adults, little prince?" she sneered. "Go home to your daddy, at least he understood when _he_ fucked up."

Scorpius flinched away, he hadn't expected this; he'd thought she'd be grateful after she heard.

She stomped out of the room. Scorpius and Albus were stupid kids. She shouldn't have snapped, but it was either shout or sob and she didn't cry anymore.

"What do we need to do to fix this?" Hermione asked, redirecting the conversation to more useful topics.

Scorpius explained the spells he and Albus had used to thwart Cedric. Hermione, Ron and Snape agreed to accompany him into the past to set it right. When they were done, before they left to put the plan into motion, he crept out of the room and found Leilani just outside the little shack. She'd been listening

Scorpius edged up close to her and saw with some surprise he was actually about two inches taller than she was, when had that happened? In his world she was his best friend's aunt, a school friend of his dad’s but here she was a stranger. A deadly stranger. He hadn't killed anyone exactly, but he was the reason so many of them didn't exist now; him and Albus and the _stupid_ plan to fix things that weren't really broken.

"Do you ever feel remorse for the—the people you've killed?" he asked quietly.

Flatly now, "It depends on who it is I've killed."

Scorpius blanched.

She shrugged, "I can tell you I know all their names. If that makes you feel any better."

"You're not going to survive this war… are you?" It wasn't really a question. "You have no intention of surviving," Scorpius realized.

"If that concerned me, I'd have brought it up months ago."

Big grey eyes stared at her in shock.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," she scoffed. "I don't need your misplaced concern. I need to get the job done. _You_ need me to get the job done. Besides, if what you're saying is true, then it doesn't matter if I survive this war because this isn't the right reality."

Horror mingled with the shock in his eyes.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, "I don't want to live like this anymore, little prince. I don't think you do either and you've been here for what, a week? Try 20 years." Hearing the remnants of the Order moving inside, she sighed. "Here," she said, pulling something on a long chain off over her head. Jo's necklace. "Take this. It's got a tracking charm on it. Activate it and I'll find you. Now get out of here, go get your friend back."

After they had gone, the knowledge that she—that _they_ were happy in another reality finally hit home for Leilani, though she wasn't going to admit it out loud.

For a moment, she was jealous of the other her, _she_ had Fred, Jo, parents, kids: a family. But here, she didn't have any of that. Fred and Jo were gone, it had been 20 years since she'd spoken to her parents or sister; she knew they were alive but for all she knew, they thought she was dead.

How come the other her got to have it all? Though… there had been a moment, a brief, shining moment, when _she_ had had it all. But then Fred had been killed and she'd gone after the death eater and had taken two Stuns to the abdomen. She was lucky she wasn't dead.

**Flashback**

**Just post the Fall of Hogwarts**

**June 1998**

Voldemort had taken residence in the minister's office and his Death Eaters were holed up in Malfoy Manor. They had been for months now. Rumor stated that the Malfoys were not particularly pleased with their compatriots living in their house. The manor was protected against Appartition, true, but she'd gotten in once before. She could do it again. Last time had been easier; she'd had Dobby. This time, she dropped into the center of Stonehenge, lucky for her there was nobody around to see her appear out of thin air.

She slipped into her animagus form and flew for the Manor.

Jo's voice was in her head, saying, _This is a profoundly stupid plan._

 _I know,_ she thought back.

_Then why are you doing it?_

_They killed you._

_Four years ago. If you're avenging me, why now?_

_They killed Fred._

As a figment of Leili's memory and imagination, Jo should have known that.

 _You're going to get yourself killed._ Her figment Jo warned.

_Voldemort won't be there. Without him there, I have a chance to get out._

_A slim one! You're planning_ suicide _by_ Death Eater _. I wouldn't have wanted this._ Fred _wouldn't have wanted this. Your parents_ definitely _don't want this_.

_I know._

Leili's mental Jo gave a little sigh and said, _Tell me the plan._

This is where the fault lay in her mental Jo; the real Jo would have tried harder to stop her. But then, the real Jo was four years dead and this one was just an echo inside her broken head.

 _Without Voldemort there, and with his hold on the country pretty much a sure thing, security won't be as strict as it was in March. I won't be able to Apparate in, but what's stopping me from_ walking _in?_

 _Um, the_ Death Eaters _?_

 _Won't kill me on the spot. I wrote Ced, made sure he was on patrol today. Besides, I'm a schoolmate of Draco's_ and _Marcus'_ and _Cedric's_. _That's three Death Eaters; I'm_ your _best friend_ and _a member of Dumbledore's Army. They're gonna want to find out what I know first._ Then _they'll kill me._

_Harry's dead, why would they care about a member of a leader-less resistance?_

_You've been dead for four years so I don't expect you to know, but last I checked: I'm on their most-wanted list._ A hint of pride accompanied the thought.

 _This is the_ stupidest _thing you have ever done._

_Do you have a better plan?_

_Yes. Go_ HOME.

 _Too late._ She dropped down behind Cedric who was indeed outside the gates, as promised, but there was another Death Eater with him. They were smoking. _Oh, things just got complicated._ She pulled herself to her full human height—which wasn't very tall, out loud she said, "Smoking, nasty habit."

Startled, they turned on her, wands drawn. Her empty hands were up, surrendering. Her surrender faltered when she recognized the Death Eater with Cedric. Her face lost its teasing humor. She'd never thrown a punch before, but that didn't stop her from trying it now. Her fist swung wildly and connected solidly with his jaw.

 _Jesus! That_ hurt _!_ she told her mental Jo.

_That's why when I actually hit someone I aimed for the soft, squishy bits. You know: stomach, jugular, groin. You're lucky you didn't break something._

_I'm not so sure I didn't. Ow._

Marcus Flint wiggled his jaw, running two fingers along the spot where her punch had landed. He smiled genially back at her, as _incarcerous_ wound ropes around her wrists, "Hello, Leilani. Nice to see you again."

Her lips curled as she snarled, " _Traitor_." She attempted to shake out her hand but was hampered by the bindings.

"Now, now, is that anyway to treat an old friend?"

"You are no friend of mine!" Leili continued to snarl at him, "I am going to _rip_ your guts out through your _nose_ when I get out of here."

"Good luck with that," he said.

Privately, Marcus was disappointed; he'd hoped Leilani would have figured out by now that he wasn't in the Death Eaters because he _wanted_ to be. It was the family business, so to speak. His parents were die-hard Death Eaters, they had never given up that their Dark Lord would return. He'd joined after Jocelyn had died, after he'd been given no other choice. If he had joined before, like his parents had wanted, maybe he would have been in the graveyard that night. Maybe he could have saved her. But he hadn't been and she was dead. He had to live with that guilt now.

"Leilani, he's not what you think—" Cedric started.

"Let her think what she likes," Marcus shrugged, waving Cedric off.

"Are you gonna take me inside or what?" she interrupted.

They brought her inside the Manor.

"This little tart says she has valuable information to trade," Marcus said as they approached the back of what could only be described as a throne-like chair. Leili figured it must have belonged to Lucius, as head of the house he would be the one to warrant a throne.

She turned wide, surprised, almost amused eyes on Marcus, "I'm a _tart_ now, am I? Fascinating. Funny what going Death Eater will do for your vocabulary."

_What happened to your brain-mouth filter? I distinctly recall you had one._

_It died when you did._

"What information do you have that you think we could possibly want?" Lucius drawled, turning his chair to face them.

"I will tell you anything you want to know about the Slytherpuff Alliance and Dumbledore's Army if you tell me where I can find Death Eater Rookwood."

"Is that so? And why do you come to us now?"

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to look a gift-horse in the mouth? Just point me toward Rookwood and I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Cedric was suppressing the urge to gape at his fellow Hufflepuff. He sincerely hoped she was bluffing, or at least had some very good, bad information to pass on.

"Information first, since there's no guarantee you'll live to pass it on."

"Fine, then." So she told them, she sold out her friends, her year-mates, the people she'd spent six years protecting. She told them everything. And if they tortured her, that's what they would find. If they tried Occlumency on her, that's what they would find. She hid everything she still cared about by hiding nothing.

 _What are you_ doing _!?_ Cedric wondered as he fought he urge to slap a hand over her mouth and drag her bodily from the house.

She hadn't told him the plan. She hadn't told anyone the plan, except for George. Last night she had sat down with him and explained what she needed, she needed to bury the truth, the real hidey-holes, the real plans so deep beneath a layer of lies that without his help, she would never be able to tell truth from fiction. In the layer of lies he planted red herrings, places the order had been, places they made it look like they were coming back to.

Both she and George knew that if this didn't work, she was dead. He made her secret keeper to the lies and then helped her forget, forget everything except her mission: to find and kill the man who had taken Fred away from them. If she survived, George would find her and put her humpty dumpty head back together again. She knew if she survived, she had to find George and tell him Rookwood was dead.

When she was finished, she said, "Our bargain?"

Draco's father gestured and Cedric removed the ropes, "I hope you know what you're doing."

"Don't worry, Ced, it'll be over before you know it," she whispered back. She held out an unbound hand toward Marcus. "My wand?"

He slapped it handle first into her palm and she caught a strange look in his eyes as she turned, he looked… _sad_. But no, that couldn't be, Marcus Flint was a heartless betrayer and death eater, he wouldn't look sad.

Rookwood sent spells hurtling towards her before she turned to face him. "Not to be a proper duel, then?" she called as she ducked. "Fine."

Spells were thrown about the room, some landing, others going wild, some bouncing off hastily thrown shields. Leilani tried to block out the things he was saying, tried to stop the feeling she'd betrayed everyone she'd ever loved and for what? To die, hopefully taking Rookwood with her.

Rookwood's _Crucio_ caught her off-guard; it hit seconds before her shield went up. She crumpled into a screaming ball of pain, her consciousness splintering as darkness danced in front of her eyes. She _knew_ someone had gotten inside her head, causing that half-second delay. She'd never been a good Occlumens and in a room full of Legillimens, that was bad. Her lightning shot out around her like an earthquake, striking anyone not quick enough to duck. She heard Rookwood's cry of surprised pain when he was hit and a grim smile spread across her face.

Shaking and panting, Leili hastily constructed an illusion spell that sent copies of her through the room. She ducked and dove through them as they moved around her, a giant shell game intended to disguise her and confuse him. Between one illusory copy and the next she vanished. She was extremely grateful she'd had to practice disillusionment spells as often as she had at school, it meant she was now very good at them.

Leili had no idea how long the duel continued on for but she was running out of energy, illusions took a lot out of her. Of course, even blind squirrels, broken clocks and Death Eaters got lucky sometimes. A randomly fired Cruciatus curse found her and once he had found her, there was no more hiding, only unending pain.

It was getting hard to breathe, to _think,_ the only thing she had been doing for a while now was screaming. She tried to block out the things Rookwood was saying he'd do to her when she gave up, the things he'd make her watch him do to everyone she'd come here to betray. There was a maniacal glint in his eyes and he licked his lips like a cat looking at a mouse. She shuddered, but her revulsion was lost inside shaking she couldn't control.

Her copies burst and vanished when struck by Rookwood's spells. She was getting desperate, if she didn't end this soon, he _would_ and it would _suck_.

Gathering up the scraps of her strength, she wordlessly sent a stunner at Rookwood and dashed away. Rookwood shouted and spells went shooting into her copies. There wasn't time to shield or duck as twin jets of red spell light collided with her. She heard herself yelp and then the whole world went black. In the blink of an eye, her illusions and disguises faded away, leaving her exposed and unconscious on the floor. They must have thought she was dead—or soon about to be—because they didn't finish her off.

She remained alive as Marcus was directed to "Get rid of her."

Marcus fisted a hand over his heart and gave a little bow. "It shall be done." He scooped her, limp as a rag doll, into his arms. He needed to get her to Mungo's. Simultaneous stuns could be fatal if untreated.

Cedric tried not to watch as Marcus carried their friend out the manor doors.

"This stunt was stupid, you know," Marcus told her when they were out of ear reach.

She was still out cold, but he talked to her anyway, he didn't think she'd listen to him if she was awake and it was the first time he'd had human contact outside of Voldemort's goons—and Cedric.

"It was stupid enough to rival Jocelyn's worst ideas. I'm sorry she's gone. I'm sorry I couldn't have saved her, the least I can do now is save you. So that's what will happen. If they find out you're still alive after this, I'm a dead man. So do me a favor, lie low."

Once out of sight of the manor, Marcus Apparated away. He landed in an alley near the hospital, making sure to change his robes for something less death-eater-ey before running through the window of a bricked-up department store, "Purge and Dowse, Ltd."

He bypassed the surly Welcome Witch and headed straight for the fourth floor. He laid her gently on an unoccupied bed. He stuck out one arm and clamped a hand over the wrist of a passing Healer.

"I dare say, dear boy, release me!"

Marcus pointed to Leilani, "She took two stuns at once. She's still breathing, I want her to stay that way."

The Healer blanched and called for reinforcements, outlining the situation and her stats. Marcus was crowded away from her side; that was ok. He needed to get back to the manor anyway; even if he wanted to stay, he couldn't leave Cedric there alone.

As he turned to leave one of the nurses stopped him, "You're bleeding." She rolled up his sleeve to tend the wound only there was no wound; the blood wasn't his. They both frowned at his arm—the non-tattooed one, thank Merlin—then turned as someone at Leilani's side swore colorfully.

"She's bleeding!"

The nurse turned to rush back to her patient but Marcus caught her arm.

"When she wakes up, don't tell her I was the one to bring her here." The nurse nodded and Marcus walked out of Leilani's life, half expecting to never walk back in, either because he was dead or she was. He left the blood on his sleeve; it would help sell the story that she was dead.

Marcus returned to the manor, his only goal to be seen by as many Death Eaters as possible. He took dinner with them and then declared a migraine and went for what served as his room. It wasn't unusual for him to not be seen for a while when he had his migraines, he claimed that light and sound made the headaches worse, so the Death Eaters pretty much let him hide in his room, it's not like they cared about him anyway. A house elf would bring his meals and collect the dishes.

When sleep descended on the Manor, he changed into jeans and a leather jacket and snuck out. He stopped by Jocelyn's grave. It was common knowledge even among the Death Eaters that he had loved her…that he _still_ loved her.

"She's lost her mind," he murmured.

 _Grief will do that._ A voice whispered in his mind. _But you saved her life._

"Maybe."

_If you're worried about her, go see her. Talk to her. Explain. She'll understand if you explain._

"I miss you, Jocelyn." He laid a bouquet of flowers on her stone before shoving his hands in his pockets and walking away. To make sure he wasn't followed, he took a circuitous route to St. Mungo's before Apparating inside.

That night, he sat by the bedside of the closest thing he had left to a friend, outside of Cedric who was more of an ally than a friend, and waited.

Eventually, she stirred.

"Don't scream!" he whispered hastily as her eyes peeled open. "Hex me if you like, but don't scream."

"Marcus?" she asked. Leili blinked, squinted, blinked again. "I must be dreaming."

Marcus' normally stoic face smiled, honest relief and humor clearing his face of the shadows that had plagued it for years. His hair was disheveled, like he'd been running his hands through it.

Leili rubbed a hand over her face, "Yup, definitely dreaming. You haven't smiled at me since you turned Death Eater. Not that you smiled at me much before that, but you smiled at Jo."

"Will you let me explain that?"

"What for?" She yawned, "I'm dreaming; you're not going to tell me anything I don't already know. Hmmm…" She sighed, snuggling into her blankets. "It's nice, being able to talk to you. I don't talk to very many people anymore."

"Nor me. Are you okay?"

"Depends on your definition. I'm not me anymore. Not for a while, I think. But I'm alive. I think. I am alive right? This isn't some strange after-death hallucination?"

Marcus huffed a laugh, "You're alive. Jocelyn would never have forgiven me if I let you get killed."

"I miss her."

"Me too. What were you _thinking_? You almost got yourself killed."

"I was thinking Rookwood needed to pay. And I was thinking that if I die, I see them again."

"You've lost your goddamn mind," Marcus said, shaking his head.

She scowled, "You're awfully judgmental for a dream."

"Rookwood is still alive."

She swore softly, "Damn. I guess I'll have to try again."

"They're gone, Leilani. Killing Rookwood won't bring them back."

"It'll make me feel better."

"Well aren't you the little _hero_ ," he sneered.

Her laugh was a little hysterical, " _There's_ the Marcus I remember!"

He scowled and rolled his eyes, grumbling, "When did you become the annoying little sister I didn't want?"

"Probably when you fell in love with my best friend."

His scowl softened slightly. "I miss her," he said quietly.

"Me too." Her eyes drifted closed and she was asleep again. Marcus stayed a while longer, trying to pretend the last four years had never happened.

Two days later, Leilani woke again, this time blinking in confusion at the bright hospital surroundings.

"Hey, kiddo," a familiar voice whispered.

"Daddy?" she said. "What are you doing here?"

"I worked here, Hon; you think these people don't know my daughter when they see her? I've been shoving photos of you and your sister in everyone's faces since you were born. I'd have been livid if they had you here and didn't call me."

"How did I get here?"

He ignored the question, flagging down a passing Healer to fill her in on what had happened. "You took two Stuns, luckily not to the chest or I don't think you would have survived it. As it is, you survived but your baby did not. I'm sorry to inform you that you suffered a spontaneous abortion."

The news was delivered quickly and unemotionally.

"I'm sorry, what?" Leili blurted as her dad spluttered.

"You had a miscarriage, dear," a nurse offered far more gently, glaring at the Healer.

"You're _pregnant_?!" Her dad squeaked. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Was," she whispered, her arms wrapping around her belly as she curled into a ball, like she could protect what was no longer there.

She and Fred hadn't gotten married by the time he'd died. They'd been planning to, but with everything going on, it just hadn't seemed like the right time. Just because they weren't married didn't mean they were celibate, though; they lived together, slept in the same bed, did… other things in that bed. She shouldn't have been surprised, she remembered missing her period, but there had been so much going on that she'd dismissed it, putting it down to the stress of the situation—it wouldn't be the first time.

It was mid June, Fred had died in Early May. She was— _had been_ roughly two months along and she'd been so distracted she hadn't noticed. She pressed down on the tears that threatened to overwhelm, pressed down on the utter devastation that came with. Her baby was gone.

Just.

Like.

 _That_.

Rookwood was responsible for yet another death; she _definitely_ was going to kill him now. She badgered her dad, the nurses, the healers, but if they knew who had brought her out of the Manor, they wouldn't say. She remembered her dream, but it was hazy, like most dreams are; everyone swore that no one had come to see her except for her dad.

She never saw Marcus again.

**Present Day**

Her charm bracelet burned on her wrist, the first time in a long, long time.

Something had gone wrong.

She'd given Jo's necklace to Scorpius. "In Case of Emergency," she'd told him. His lower lip had wobbled for a split second, she was sure of it, and she almost thought he might hug her but then, he'd straightened up, Hermione had Turned Time and they'd gone.

But now her bracelet was burning and she was flying. She flew faster than she'd ever flown before, just in time to see Umbridge come up on Scorpius and Snape. She was _so_ close. Umbridge was thrown through the air and Snape's doe stood regally beside him.

"Always too dramatic for her own good…" Snape murmured to himself. Leili's dolphin burst from her wand before her feet touched the ground.

"So says the man who spent my school years sweeping through the hallways like a great overgrown bat," Leili told him, relishing the glare he shot her. She felt more like herself than she had in years.

"Go," was his last order to them as he brought down the Anti-apparition spells.

They went.

Leilani took Scorpius' hand and folding space around them, she Apparated him directly into the middle of the lake. "Learned your lesson, Scor? No more screwing with time."

"No more," he promised and was gone.

To their surprise, and to Albus', Scorpius sought out Jo and Leilani when he got back to his proper timeline—after being lectured at by the Headmistress. Leilani was pleased to see them, initially thinking they’d come for tutoring.

Jo and Leilani sat down with them and listened to all the things they did not want to tell their parents. "Mr. Diggory came over one night and he and my dad got into a really big fight over a time-turner and whether or not it could bring Cedric back," Albus explained. "It was my idea to take the time turner. I just wanted to fix things."

"And to get back at your dad, right?" Jo asked… not _un_ -kindly, but there was an edge to her question.

Albus mumbled a "yeah." Then, "It's just that he's always going on about how James is a better son th'n me, how he wishes I were more like _James_ or Lily…"

"I have a hunch as to why he said that. Would you like to hear it?" Leili said. She wasn't going to try and force her theories on this kid.

"Whatever."

"I'd like to know…" Scorpius said.

"When your dad was a kid, he did some _really_ stupid things. _Both_ of your dads did some dumb stuff, to be honest. Jo and I were always chasing after Harry and your Uncle Ron and your Aunt Hermione. I'll bet your dad wishes, not that you were more like your brother, though I'm sure that's what you heard him say, but that you were less like _him_."

"I am _nothing_ like him!" Albus barked, thumping his fist on the table.

Leili held her hands up, palms out, classic 'I surrender'. She was giving up easily, she knew, but if he didn't want to listen, she wasn't going to force it. It was a little like trying to get Pele and Leo to _eat_ their vegetables instead of enchanting them—something her twins _still_ did.

"This isn't going anywhere," Jo said, leveling her best hooded-eye stare at the boys. "I have an idea. Come with me if you want the _truth_."

As Jo and Leili escorted the teenagers to the pensieve, Leili noticed something shiny around Scorpius' shirt. "Hold up, you. What's this?" she looped a finger though the chain and pulled it free of the uniform. She froze, "Jo, are you wearing your necklace?"

"Always, why?"

"Cause so is Scorpius."

"You gave it to me," Scorpius said.

Leili blinked then frowned, "Funny, I think I would remember that."

He shifted uncomfortably. "The other you. In the other timeline."

"You… you shouldn't have been able to bring that back with you. The other timeline doesn't exist now, the me who gave you that never existed _to_ give you that."

Jo turned dread-filled eyes back on the 14 year old, "It's not over."

Leili frowned, rubbing her thumb over the carved surface, thinking. She’d known Scorpius since he was a toddler and Albus from birth. They were good kids. Both Draco and Harry were trying to be good parents, with neither one really understanding _how_. Ginny was on a health food kick and had banned sweets from the house but the kids all knew where Harry kept his stash and if he was out, then all they had to do was send an owl to literally _any_ aunt or uncle and receive a fresh bag in return. “Albus…” She said. “You said… something about a prophecy? Your dad said something about a dark cloud?”

“He thought it was Scor,” Albus frowned.

Jo pitched in, “Yeah. I’mma have a word with him on that. You don’t have enough friends; he shouldn’t be trying to take away your best friend. He of all people should understand that.”

“I don’t need you defending me!” Albus snapped.

Leili bopped him gently on top of his head, “Sweetie, if you didn’t need _someone_ to talk to your father, you wouldn’t be in this mess. And that’s not a judgment on you so don’t give me that indignant look. He, of all people, should know better than to go around blindly following prophecies, that’s how they come _true_.” She shot a look at Jo who was watching her with a mixture of confusion and impatience on her face. She turned back to the boys, “Listen to me. Listen very carefully. We all know that whatever the hell you kids did, you fixed it, but something is still coming. We know this. Do you still have the time turner?”

Scorpius answered, “No. It-it broke. When I came back, it broke. We dumped the pieces in the lake.”

“Well that’s something, at least.” Leili muttered. “Ok, if you don’t have the time turner then what ever is coming after you—after everyone—is happening in _this_ time.”

“We screwed up, didn’t we?” Scorpius said quietly.

“Oh, honey,” Leili smiled. “When this is all over, remind us to tell you just how bad your _parents_ screwed up, when they were your age, ok? Harry Potter is not infallible. And Draco? Total prat for seven years.”

Scorpius tilted his head at her, “Sometimes, I forget you’re an adult. Like now. You aren’t acting like an adult. You’re acting like you’re _our_ age.”

Jo cackled, “Oh no, she was way more annoying at fourteen, trust me, I was there.” 

“So what do we do?” Albus asked.

“You two are gonna go to bed. It’s late and we’re going to need you sharp if you’re going to help us think our way out of whatever’s coming,” Jo said.

“Wait, you _want_ our help?” Albus asked, dumbfounded. They’d bungled this whole thing so badly, he figured they’d be sent to their dorm and the adults would get together without them and fix it behind their backs.

Jo quirked an eyebrow, “It seems to me that the whole reason this happened was because you were trying to help. Seems only fair that you help make it right. Don’t you think?”

The boys nodded and shuffled back to their bedroom. “What do you think?” Leilani asked when the boys were out of earshot.

“I think Harry has no idea how much he messed up his kid.”

“Do any of us? But that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I think the time-turner is still intact. I think that the only way that thing will ever be safe is if they destroy it. And I think it has to be them. Their choice. Otherwise the resentment will fester.”

“What do we do about it?” Leili asked, then laughed at herself, “God, it’s just like being back at school. We’re rushing around trying to make sure a Potter boy doesn’t accidentally get himself killed.”

“But this time we don’t have to be sneaky. I still say they help us fix it in the morning. Their mistake, their mess, their job to help fix it. …But keep an eye on them, yeah?” 

Leili nodded and folded herself into her animagus shape. She butted her head against Jo’s cheek and took off down the hall after the boys.

In the Slytherin Dorm, Professor and father Harry Potter was waiting for his boy. Harry wrapped his son in a hug and apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was hard on you. You shouldn’t have taken the time turner, and I’ve locked away the map, you won’t see it until you can prove that you’re ready to use it. Your mum left your room exactly the same—wouldn’t let me go in. Merlin, you scared us.” Harry squeezed the hug tighter as he inhaled the scent of his son’s hair. 

“…Really scared you?” Albus asked quietly.

“Merlin, yes.”

“I thought—I thought Harry Potter wasn't afraid of anything…” Albus said.

“Is that what you think of me? Is that how I make you feel?” Harry asked, pulling away to look Albus in the face.

“When Scorpius turned time, I ended up in Gryffindor and things were just as bad between us then, so it’s not because I’m in Slytherin, is it?” he said, thinking out loud.

Harry gripped Albus below his shoulders and squeezed gently, “No. It’s not that. I told you when you were getting on the train the first time, Severus Snape—a Slytherin—was one of the bravest men I have ever known, and Slytherin has gained a great student in you. Are you ok, Albus?”

“…No.”

Harry shook his head and pulled his son in for another hug. “No. Nor me. I was wrong, you know. About Scorpius.” Harry smiled over Albus’ head at the blonde boy trying to be invisible. “There’s no way you’re anything other than Draco’s son.”

“And he’s not a black cloud,” Albus added, his voice muffled by his dad’s shirt. It had been a long time since the two of them had been this close—emotionally. It felt… nice. Right. The way it should be.

Harry smiled, nodding, “He’s not a black cloud. I was wrong. I’m sorry, Scorpius. Albus is lucky, to have a friend like you.” 

“Did you talk to Aunt Jo already?” Albus asked, sure there was no way the two of them could have talked and his dad _still_ beaten them here.

“Jo? Why? No, I haven’t talked to Jo. Should I have?”

Part of Albus soared at the confirmation, his dad wasn’t saying these things because he’d had them knocked into him, he was saying them because he _meant_ them.

Harry pulled away, “Now, get some rest, both of you. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night, Dad,” Albus said awkwardly.

“Night, Mr. Potter.” After Harry left, Scorpius said, “You know, I really hated it in the other time line. It was awful. You didn’t exist, the world was a terrible place and I was… entitled and angry. Arrogant, mean; people were totally afraid of me. I think we were all tested. And we all failed. It was stupid of us to try and change the past.”

“No. The stupid thing wasn’t trying once, anyone could have done that, but we did it _twice._ That was the stupid thing. Being arrogant enough to think it was alright if _we_ did it. Because we knew what we were doing. But we didn’t.”

“I think we should destroy this,” Scorpius pulled the Time Turner out of his pocket.

“Pretty sure you said that broke.”

“I lied. Who can we trust to not do what we did? To not be tempted? Not your Aunt Hermione, not the ministry, they kept it.”

“Aunt Jo looked positively _green_ at the mention of it.”

“But Cedric was her friend. Can we trust her to destroy it? No one can do what we did. No one. We have to destroy it. It’s time Time Turning became a thing of the past.” 

Albus could practically _hear_ the trumpets accompanying _that_ statement, “Proud of that one, aren’t you?”

Scorpius grinned, “Been working on it all day.”

The two of them went up to the Owlry and began planning how to destroy the time turner. They sent an owl to Delphi who arrived promptly. They explained why they had to destroy the devise and she seemed to agree, until she got it in her hands and then all the pieces clicked into place. She was the ward of the Rowles, daughter of Bellatrix and Lord Voldemort, “I am the new future! I am the answer this world has been looking fo— _oof_!” her tirade was cut off as something came flying bodily into her. 

Leilani had been following the boys in bird form. As soon as Delphi revealed herself, she flew at her, transforming mid-dive to knock her to the feather and excrement-covered floor. She tossed her wand to one of the boys as she tussled with Delphi. She had no witty come-backs or snappy repartee to offer as she aimed to wrestle the time turner from Delphi’s fingers. The boys managed to free themselves and rushed to help but Delphi somehow managed to make the required number of turns and by the time the boys reached them, all four of them vanished into the past.

The years wound by and the tussle continued. “When spares are spared, when time is turned, when unseen children murder their fathers: Then the Dark Lord returns!” Delphi cried joyously as time stopped turning.

“What a load of hooey!” Leilani declared. “Unseen children. Unseen children my left foot! Albus is _not_ an unseen child. I know he thinks he is, but would I be here? _”_

Delphi’s face shot towards Leilani, as if she’d forgotten she was still there.

“You want your father? You want to sit at his right hand? Well, guess what, missy, I guarantee you he would not love you the way you think. He would use you like so much cheap soap. That’s how he used your mother, you know. You want an ‘unseen child’? Look in the mirror, _kid._ I think you fit that description to a T!” 

They stopped in the maze, and Delphi managed to extricate herself from Leili’s grip. Delphi kept the time turner, but Leilani managed to snag the blonde’s wand. Delphi scuttled off.

Leili got to her feet and pressed the kids into the living wall of the maze; Cedric shouldn’t see them, he certainly shouldn’t see _her._ Oh, she could explain, ‘I’m from the future’ but that would lead to questions and they didn't have time for questions right now. “Aunt Leilani! She’s going to save Cedric! She’ll stop him from getting to the cup!” Albus cried.

She tapped the boys on the heads with Delphi’s wand, Scorpius shivered at the wet-egg-dripping-from-my-hair feeling of the disillusionment spell “It’ll be alright. Look, see? There it goes.” Sure enough, the blue and silver cup was hurtling over-head towards the stands. 

“But—!” Scorpius started.

 _“_ No buts right now, I’ll explain everything later. Right now, when she comes back I want you to grab on to her, tight as you can. Don’t say anything, just grab and hold tight, I’m going to get you home.”

Delphi returned, smug, as the Time Turner began to shake. 

“ _Ready_?” Leilani whispered as Delphi looked around for them. “ _Set_ … _Go._ ” The boys jumped out of the hedge, each laying a hand on one of Delphi’s wrists while Leilani held their other hand. Time wound forward again, dropping them on the Quidditch pitch. As soon as time settled around them, Leilani cast, _“Petrificus totalis_!” Delphi’s arms and legs snapped together and the only thing holding her up were the boys. But there was still a triumphant gleam in her eyes.

Then from behind came a voice, “Mom?” 

Leilani turned around and her face broke into a grin, “Hey babies! What’re you two doing out here in the middle of the night?”

The twins gave each other a look and then ran, skidding into their mom’s open arms. They were seventeen now, graduating this year and Leili blinked back a tear as she hugged them. They’d gotten so _big!_

“We were gonna play Quidditch but it looks like the rest of the gang has decided to sleep instead. Cowards!” Leo explained. 

“Pele? Leo? What’re you… I thought you’d be… _gone_ …” Albus asked, desperately confused. Albus had never noticed before how much Pele resembled his sister Lily. Both had the trademark Weasley hair and eyes, but their noses were different, Pele’s turned up at the end, like her mom’s. Pele’s face was more heart shaped than Lily’s, but they could still be sisters. He looked at Leo… now that he looked, Leo looked like his dad with his mom’s coloring. How could twins look so different? 

The gleam in Delphi’s eyes was giving way to suspicion. “Someone take the time turner from her, please?” Leilani requested. “I’m not going through that nonsense again.”

“I’ve got it,” Scorpius said, holding up the pendant.

“Time Turner? But you said they’d all been destroyed!” Pele said, looking at her mom.

“We thought they had. C’mon, lets talk about this inside. Which one of you boys has my wand?”

“Here,” Albus held it out. “I held on to it. She broke ours.”

“I’ll make you a new one. _Locamotor mortis._ ” Delphi rose into the air like a balloon and they made their way inside. “So, midnight Quidditch, huh? You guys still do that?”

“They did it when you were here too?” Pele asked.

Leilani nodded, “The outgoing seventh years would let the incoming sixth years in on the secret. I only played once or twice, I was a little busy doing other things, but your Aunt Jo made time whenever she could. We’ll see if we run into the rest of your friends on the way back.”

They did run into the rest of the group but Quidditch was forgotten when they saw Wand Maker Leilani Akina-Weasley with a blonde girl floating along behind the Potter and Malfoy boys, _this_ was going to be the best gossip of the year—what ever _this_ was. 

Inside now, Leilani gathered them in the Room of Requirement; they were waiting for the rest of the adults to show up because she was “not going through this nonsense again,” Pele and Leo chorused with her, laughing. One of Pele and Leo’s Slytherin friends had gone to fetch Marcus who would fetch his wife who was hopefully with everybody else, otherwise there was quite a lot of fetching to do. Luckily, they had time.

While they waited, Leilani scolded gently, “You told me the time turner broke, Scorpius.” He had the decency to look shamed. “Tell me why you lied.”

“I was afraid I couldn’t trust you guys to destroy it. The Ministry had it all this time and _they_ didn’t do anything with it. I was afraid you’d be tempted to go back and save Cedric. You were friends.”

“Actually, mom was never really friends with Cedric,” Pele piped.

“What?” Scorpius sputtered.

“He was the Quidditch Captain but they were never really close,” Leo added.

“You should’ve come to _us_ ,” Pele said.

“We’d have told you,” Leo added.

 _Now_ Albus saw the resemblance, not so much in their faces but in voices and mannerisms.

“But I saw you with him, at the second task. After we made Cedric into a balloon!” Scorpius protested.

“He was still a Hufflepuff,” Leilani shrugged. “I would have still helped him out of a bind, wouldn’t you?”

“I mean… we’re the ones who put him in that bind. And then he turned into a Death Eater!”

“Who turned into a Death Eater?” Marcus asked as he came in, leading the rest of the adults as expected.

“Cedric Diggory!”

Marcus frowned, “Cedric Diggory never became a Death Eater. I would know. Besides, he died that night.”

"Hey look: Twinsies! Hi, Twinsies!" Jo greeted as she walked in and saw Pele and Leo sitting next to their mom on one of the couches.

The twins broke into matching grins, "Hi Aunt Jo!" they said. She'd been calling them Twinsies for as long as they could remember, probably longer. She hugged them both and then went to stand beside Marcus.

She sighed genially, "I miss Amanda."

Marcus smiled and even the _blind_ could see how he adored her. "We could make another one…” he said in an undertone that somehow caught in the ears of everyone in the room. The adults largely ignored it, though Leilani did pull a face at them, she did _not_ like hearing about their sex life—it was bad enough the one time Jo had broken in on her and Fred.

“It’s a little late for that, bub.”

Marcus just laughed, “Not _too_ late.”

“Hmm, I may have to take you up on that, _Captain_ ,” Jo purred.

The Twins rolled their eyes, "Gross you guys," they said together. 

(This is how Amanda wound up with a much younger brother while she was off having adventures with Paige. She was a little grossed out at the idea of her parents having sex, but found herself rather attached to little Milo.)

“Dad!” Albus cried, leaping over Delphi to hug Harry and the Ginny, “Mom! You’re ok!”

“Of course we’re ok!” Ginny said, baffled.

Leili didn’t move from her spot of the couch, “Come in, sit down, we have some explaining to do. But before we do that, we need to destroy that Time Turner. Scorpius, still have the necklace?”

Scorpius’ hand shot to his neck, searching for the chain, he looked down when he couldn’t feel it. “…It’s gone!”

“Good,” she nodded. “That’s a loop closed.” 

“Boys…” Headmistress McGonagall held out a hand and Scorpius dropped the hourglass into her palm. The room lit a fire in the fireplace and all watched as she dropped in to the flames. There was a brief spark and a soft _chink_ as the glass broke. The time turner was no more.

“Right, so everyone, this is Delphi. She is not Delphi _Diggory_ but rather Delphi _Riddle._ ”

“Voldemort had a sister?” Leo asked.

“I wish. No, honey. Somehow, and I’m not sure how because the thought frankly boggles my mind, she’s his _daughter_. Half Bellatrix, half Voldemort.”

“Bullshit!” Jo swore, half laughing in disbelief. “Anybody got any Veritaserum handy?”

“It doesn’t matter if she really is or not. What matters is she wanted to bring about a return of the Dark. Something about sparing spares and an unseen child—prophecy talk.”

“‘When Spares are spared and Time is Turned when unseen children murder their fathers: Then the Dark Lord returns’ is what she said.” Albus recited from his seat between his parents.

“Prophecy talk,” Jo groaned in agreement.

Leili explained quickly what had happened in their jaunt through time, “I was keeping bird’s eye on these two and so managed to interrupt her. She seemed to think that Cedric was the ‘spare’ and Albus was the ‘unseen child’. Harry you were there, do you remember anything about Cedric being a spare?”

Harry thought about it for a second, “No. Crouch Jr. just killed him. He’d gotten too suspicious. He probably would have killed him anyway.”

“Delphi thought that if we stopped Cedric from getting to the cup, we’d save him,” Scorpius supplied.

“Right, but here’s what Miss Riddle obviously didn’t know: Cedric never touched the cup.” The words dropped like stones down a well, with only the faint _plonk_ to know they’d reached the water.

“That’s right…” Harry said slowly. “Neither of us did. _You_ did.”

Leili nodded, “Jo and I Summoned the cup and kept you out of the graveyard. Nearly killed us both.”

The glittering triumph had eddied out of Delphi’s eyes, leaving her shaken and betrayed. 

“Horrible day.” Marcus murmured, snaking an arm around Jo’s shoulders to pull her closer in the memory’s wake.

“So by that logic… Cedric was never the spare…” Leo said, looking at his twin.

“Mom was,” Pele finished, and they both turned to Leilani who was smiling at them.

“I’m so proud of you two,” Leili enthused, her heart growing two sizes in her pride. She turned to Delphi whose eyes were filling with anger now. “This is why you don’t listen to prophecies, they’re notoriously unclear. You can’t _spare_ a spare that never died, Delphi.”

“What about Death Eater Cedric?” Albus asked.

“I actually may have the answer to that one. If I may, Leilani?”

“Floor’s all yours, Marcus.”

“Cedric was a dyed in the wool Hufflepuff, I didn’t know him well, had a few games against him, good Captain, good Seeker. He wouldn’t have let a little bruised ego turn him Dark. I propose he was a spy for the Alliance.”

“The Alliance?” Harry and Ginny asked.

“The Slytherpuff Alliance. A pact between Slytherin and Hufflepuff.”

“Complete with buddy system!” Jo laughed, “It never occurred to me how silly the name sounded until now!”

“I was maybe fifteen years old, Jocelyn, I’d like to have seen you do better,” he muttered.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love it, it’s just kind of a silly name!”

“I think it’s perfect!” Scorpius defended.

“Thank you, Scorpius,” Marcus said and Jo snickered.

“Can we get back on topic here?” Harry pleaded. “You think Cedric turned spy for your alliance?”

Marcus nodded, “It makes sense.”

“Well, now that that’s settled, what do we do about Delphi here?” Leilani asked, prodding Delphi’s side with her foot.

“Minister Granger, I believe that’s _your_ job _,_ ” McGonagall decreed icily—she was still upset at Hermione for having kept the time turner to begin with, not to mention keeping it so woefully unprotected that two fourteen year olds could find it.

“Yes, Headmistress. Use of forbidden relics and conspiracy to commit mass murder, I think. Jo, would you give me an hand?”

“You got it,” Jo pushed away from her husband and helped Hermione lever Delphi up from the floor. “Headmistress, can you lend us a fireplace?” No point in trying to Apparate out, only McGonagall could do that. “Did she have a wand?”

“I’ve got it,” Leilani said. “I’m going to take it back to the shop and destroy it, I just want to double check it’s not one of mine.”

“Your fireplace,” McGonagall said, standing beside a fire glowing green. Hermione and Jo stepped inside, Delphi held between them. “Minister of Magic’s office.” And then they were gone.

“Alright, kids, this has been… interesting.” Leilani was going to say _fun_ but very little of it had actually been fun. “Don’t forget to write Paige, tell her all about your adventure. Study hard,” she kissed their temples, “no pranks.” The twins knew their mother well enough that when she said ‘no pranks’ she really meant ‘no pranks, until _next_ week _._ ’ “Boys, I’ll check my records on your wands and see what I can do to replace them. I’ll need you to come in over the weekend, with the Headmistress’ approval of course.”

McGonagall dipped her head; she couldn’t very well have students running around _wandless_. “Thank you for your assistance, Miss Akina.”

“You know me, happy to help! Back to the shop, please, Professor.”

McGonagall tossed a handful of floo powder at Leilani’s feet in the fireplace, “Ollivander’s.” Leili had kept the name after she’d taken over the business—no sense in messing with a good thing.

“Bye Mom!” the twins waved and then the flames engulfed her and she was gone.

“Your turn, Miss Weasley.”

Albus hugged his mom goodbye.

McGonagall turned to Pele, Leo and their gathered friends, “I’m going to forget I ever saw you tonight, so off to your beds before I’m forced to give detention for being out past curfew.” The students scattered, they weren’t going to get another free pass like that. That left Harry, Marcus, and the two boys. “Detention, I think, for you two. Meddling in time. And twenty points from each of you.” That was forty total from Slytherin, the boys winced, trying not to make a big deal because she could easily change her mind and take more. “Five points back for trying to do the right thing in the end. Each.” Ten points back took the sting out of the punishment, but not the bite. “Now, I suggest you go to bed, before anything else happens to change my mind.”

“Yes, Headmistress,” they said, shuffling off to their dorm.

“And _my_ punishment, Professor?” Harry asked, feeling about as old as Albus right now, under the force of her stony gaze. 

“ _You_ get to tell Draco what your sons got up to tonight.”

Harry winced, talking to Draco after he’d accused his son of being the dark cloud Firenze had seen over Abus. After accusing him of being Voldemort’s son. “Of course, Professor.” He slouched his way into the fireplace and let himself be whisked away to Draco’s. 

After a long silence, Marcus spoke, “If you don’t mind, Headmistress, I’d like to make sure my niece and nephew went to bed. Good night.”

As he was leaving, she said, “Thank you, Marcus.”

Marcus smiled, “I didn’t do anything.”

The room suddenly empty, Minerva McGonagall abandoned the grace and poise of her station and dropped with a groan into the couch. “I am getting too old for this.”

THE END.


	142. Outtakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are in no particular order except the order in which I wrote them down. They're just silly little things that never made into the story.

June 4th, 1993  
Fourth Year  
\---

When the girls arrived at King's Cross Station Molly and Arthur Weasley were looking for them.

Dumbledore had told them of the girls' involvement in rescuing their daughter—he'd thought it best they heard it from him before the school rumors took the girls' involvement a bit farther than was actually accurate, impressive since the mill did it without naming them. Molly wanted nothing more than to give them both a great big thank-you hug. Only problem with that was she wasn't entirely sure what the girls looked like.

Dumbledore had said two Hufflepuff girls, she'd managed to wring out their hair color: brown, and their names: Jocelyn Montgomery and Leilani Akina, but that was it. So she was stuck waiting for two brunette girls in Hufflepuff colors to come out of the barrier. Unfortunately for Molly and Arthur, the girls had changed and were no longer wearing their uniforms thus becoming effectively invisible. This was how the girls unwittingly escaped bear hugs from the Weasley Matriarch.

Fred noticed them though. He thought about going up to them and thanking them for trying to help save Ginny but then he decided not to, his mom had asked if he knew them and what they had done for his sister, that was how he found out.

He and George shared a few classes with them; they were interesting girls, always looking out for the vulnerable, whether the vulnerable were in Hufflepuff or not. The most interesting thing about them, Fred thought, was how nobody noticed them, and how they seemed to like it that way. So he decided not to go up and talk to them. If they prized their anonymity, then he'd let them keep it. But there was something about Leilani... He kept catching himself looking at her, during class, meals, chance encounters in the halls. Interacting with her gave him this... fluttering feeling. Looking at her made him smile.

The girls got on the train home and spent the rest of the summer alternating between coming up with ideas to make keeping Harry out of danger easier and completely avoiding anything to do with school. Leili's Lucky Potion had once again spoiled and she was beginning to despair of ever getting it right. After a conversation with her mom she decided to 'try a different recipe'. Leili hunted down another textbook with a different version of the potion recipe in it and got to work.

XXX

“Did no-one ever tell you not to _fuck_ with the Hufflepuffs? Badgers have _teeth._ ” (I’m not sure who says this, maybe Jo, maybe Leili in a bad mood. Maybe one of the kids. Fill in the blanks as you desire.)

XXX

(This one was originally set with Jo and Leilani but I decided to change it. Pele and Leo are Fred and Leilani’s youngest two)

“What’re you doing with _that_ thing, then?” Aberforth grunted as he came upon the twins reading _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_.

“Reading it,” Pele said.

“It’s a book, we do that sort of thing,” Leo finished.

“Have _you_ read it?” They asked, blinking their dad’s brown eyes up at him from where they lay side by side on the floor. Pele’s hair had gotten redder in the ten years she’d been alive, while Leo’s golden blonde had darkened to a light brown when he was about six and kept getting darker. His mother suspected it would end up about the same shade as her own hair which had darkened gradually the same way Leo’s was doing.

“Why should I have?” he scoffed. “He was _my_ brother.”

“I dunno; if Rita Skeeter wrote a Tell-All book about Paige, I might want to know what’s in it,” Pele responded. “I might not though,” she mused. “She is our sister. I certainly don’t want to know all her dirty little secrets…” 

“On the other hand, if someone wrote a book of lies and half-truths about her, I might feel obligated to read it, if only to rebut…” Leo considered. “We were just wondering how much of this book is about _his_ life and how much is about _her_ lies. Mom’s told about her. Says she’s a dung beetle.”

“Why buy it?”

“ _Buy_ this piece of lunacy? As if we’d waste our allowance!” Leo scoffed.

Pele explained, “Somebody left it on the doorstep, we figured you’d just throw it away and we couldn’t let you do that, it is a _book,_ after all. No book actually deserves that.”

“I dunno, I’ve read a few _really_ awful ones,” Leo commented.

“You want to know about my be-knighted brother? Saint Albus? Alright, I’ll tell you. He was an idiot,” Aberforth grumbled. Somehow he’d gotten roped into babysitting the twins. He honestly wasn’t sure how.

The twins looked at each other, a whole conversation playing out in that glance before they closed the Dung Beetle’s book and sat up, staring at Aberforth in raptuous wonder; they loved it when the adults told stories about the stupid things their siblings did. 

XXX

Jo walks around with Leili on her head in her bird form.

“Don’t you dare poop on my head.”

“Oh please! Have I ever, in all the years you’ve known me, done anything like that?”

“…Touché.”

“Thank you. Now, do you have a headband? I don’t want to scalp you.”

XXX

“I thought Hufflepuffs were supposed to be nice,” Amanda’s Slytherin buddy said in confusion, Hufflepuffs weren’t _quite_ how he’d thought they’d be.

“Nice is different than Good. Do me a favor, don’t say that in front of my mom,” Amanda laughed. “She helped found the Alliance, you know. She’s vey proud of it.”

XXX

(this one is borrowed from a tumblr post by Caffinatedvagitarian and Cannibalhello)

“Teddy Lupin, _what_ in the name of Merlin’s pants do you think you’re doing?” Amanda asked, arms akimbo.

The teal haired boy froze mid-shift, he turned a face that didn't belong to him towards his… god…cousin… “Err… nothing?” he said. Teddy was about a year older than Amanda but she didn’t act like it.

If you wanted to know how everyone in the family was related to everyone else, you really needed a pamphlet. Amada Flint was Auror Montgomery and Professor Flint’s daughter. Amanda was the unofficially adopted cousin of Paige Weasley, daughter of Wand maker Leilani Akina-Weasley who was aunt by marriage to all of the Potter-Weasley kids, and Teddy was godson of Professor Potter… It was complicated. 

“You’re gonna get caught,” she declared. Teddy may not fully realize it, but Amanda and Paige looked up to him, he could do no wrong, _especially_ when he was about to start a trick.

“Nah! Been doing this for _ages_!” he reached down and ruffled her short dark hair before finishing his morph into another boy. “How do I look?”

“Like you can serve your _own_ detention tomorrow night, Mr. Lupin.”

Teddy froze again at the sound of Headmistress McGonagall’s voice behind him.

Amanda hid her snickers behind her hand.

“Your father will be very disappointed to hear about this.”

Remus would find the whole shenanigains hilarious, Tonks would have found it even funnier. Remus had mourned for his wife by throwing himself headlong into raising Teddy. Teddy had a natural gift for mischief and Remus dedicated part of his life to teaching him the best way to use said gift—safely. 

XXX

“Why do they teach children to unlock locked doors, anyway? Do they also teach them to hot wire a broom?” Jo said to Leili.

“You don’t really _need_ to hot wire a broom, you just kinda… _go_ ,” Leili responded.

“Oh, you know what I mean!” Jo huffed and Leili laughed.

“In all fairness, have you ever seen your mother lock her keys in the house or the car? A spell to unlock locked doors would come in very handy.”

“Hmph. Mebbeh,” Jo said, “I still think it’s just asking for trouble.”

“What did Amanda do this time?”

XXX

(This one was originally supposed to be about Dobby so I don’t know what elf they’re trying to find.)

“How does one _find_ a freed house-elf? Lure him in with the promise of socks?” Paige asked in a whisper, they were out of bed after lights out, sneaking around the corridors.

Amanda considered, then replied, “Head to the place he’s most likely to show up. ...Best keep the socks handy, though, just in case.”

XXX

(This was written way back when the Alliance was all Jo and Leili’s idea. Maybe even beofre we’d even decided to bring Marcus in as a recurring character.)

"But I know one thing - last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, a Mudblood died. So I bet it's a matter of time before one of them's killed this time... I hope it's Granger"

“You _hope_ —you **_hope_ **someone dies?! Never say that! Don’t even think it! What if it was someone _you_ liked that was in danger? What would you say then?”

“I don’t have friends, I have loyal followers,” Malfoy said, his nose in the air.

“You-you,” Leili turned to Jo, “I’m going to wring his skinny little neck!” she said before turning back to Malfoy and finding herself at a loss for words. How were they to form an alliance with Slytherin if 90% of them were like this rotten boy?

Jo stepped in, “Look, pretend for one minute that you have a tiny shred of decency somewhere in that frigid little heart of yours—you love your mother, right?” Draco nodded, “Good, ok, pretend that someone really big and really, really bad wanted to hurt her, to kill her, you would care, and you would haul off and slug anyone who said ‘I hope she dies’. Now, this is going to sound cheesy but, in the muggle world there’s this saying, it’s called the golden rule and basically, it says that if you treat people how you want to be treated, they won’t hate your guts, and they’ll treat you how you want to be treated.”

Leili laughed, she loved Jo’s addition of “They won’t hate your guts” to the golden rule.

XXX

“Y’know, you guys need to be more creative when killing things…” (Amanda on something killable, spiders maybe?)

XXX  
(Created by RM)

Imagine them:

Try to bluff their way past the fat lady in Gryff uniforms.

Trying to break the window glass while on brooms and finding out it’s unbreakable.

Amanda stops Paige’s admittedly ill-conceived attempt to climb in through the chimney.

XXX

(At one point, Macus didn’t turn Death Eater, he and Jo stayed together. These next two follow that earlier storyline)

Jo had finally invited Marcus over to her mom’s for dinner. For all that he’d been practically begging to be introduced to her family for the last few years he didn’t actually know what to expect. He knew they were muggles, but other than that, she’d been very tightlipped about them.

After dinner they flaked out on her bed, the door shut—she was a grown woman and her mom trusted her discretion.

Jo sat up and leaned over him to reach something on her side table. Her older brother _just so happened_ to be casually strolling past and decided to open the door to torture his little sister a bit. 

He poked his nose in and said, “What are you doing?”

Jo tossed her hair over her shoulder as she turned to look at him, “We’re reenacting _The Little Mermaid_. I’ve just rescued my prince from drowning. I’d like to ravish him to within an inch of his life, but that doesn’t happen for another four days,” she smiled saccharine sweetly at him, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

Jonathan frowned at his little sister.

Marcus gaped at Jo and spluttered when she finally managed to kick her brother out of her room.

She plunked her hands on his hips, “What?”

“You’re inexplicable!” he said it like a compliment and a curse all at the same time.

“Really? Why?”

He laughed, a startled but joyous sound, “You are _completely_ shameless. You said you wanted to ravish me.”

“So?” 

“You said it to your brother!”

She laughed deep in her throat, “Believe me, I’ve said worse. If you’d had siblings—no, if you had _my_ siblings, you’d be as capable of teasing them as I am. You’d have to if you wanted to survive.”

“But you said you wanted to ravish me!”

“I do, but I’m not gonna do it with my mom in the house.”

His hands slid beneath her shirt, moving up her body inch by glorious inch as she kissed him almost senseless. His thumbs stroked the molded foam cups of her bra as her own hands explored his chest.

He pulled back when she made a purring-like sound, his eyes wide with abject curiosity. “How do you do that?”

“It’s a hold over from my bear form. It seems when you become an Animagus, your human form influences your animal form just as much as vice versa. Leili became a _much_ better mimic after she learned how to shift.”

“What else can you do?”

She grinned wickedly and kissed him again.

XXX

(This one was set in the Hog’s head, with the girls directing traffic through Ariana’s portrait)

Turning they found Wood and Flint standing side by side, for once, not glaring at each other. “Oh Circe, the world is coming to an end. Marcus and Wood actually getting along, it _must_ be the apocalypse,” Jo declared.

XXX

(THIS one followed a Death Eater! Marcus story line but one where he was a double agent for the Alliance, he would send Jo clever letters. I left part of this storyline in, though unbeknownst to the Alliance.)

The reason the girls knew all of this was because Marcus had been sending them updates. The updates were quite clever, they were similar to a timed port-key combined with a howler, they disappeared and reappeared exactly where and when they were meant to, and then after being read, they burst into flames. 

XXX

Ferret and Ferret Jr. (Lucius and Draco) tweedledumb and tweedledumber (crabbe and goyle)

XXX

It was a running joke in the Hufflepuff house how Jo and Leilani both had a thing for Quidditch players. It had started with Jo and Marcus and then Leilani and Oliver, later with Leili and Fred. It didn’t help matters that both boys were from houses that were constantly fighting.

XXX

(I thought of this one after reading Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid sereis, Katharine is supposed to be a snake cryptid, I think she’s supposed to be a gorgon, but I’m not sure. It takes place immediately after Marcus’ Death Eater revelation.)

“D’you want to talk about it or be distracted from it?” Leili asked when Jo dried her face. 

“Distracted. Definitely.”

“How would you like another tattoo?”

“This late?”

“Hey, as long as _they’re_ open and _we’re_ not drunk, I think we’ve got a shot.”

“What makes you think they’re open?”

“The parlor I went to for my Niffler has artists who prefer swing and graveyard shifts. Pretty sure the owner is a Bogeyman—didn’t think it was polite to ask. Had to look through like 4 different books to figure out what he was ’cause he’s not a _beast_ , he’s just not… human.”

“Yeah, probably not a good idea to enquire into the species of the guy sticking needles in you.”

“Pretty much what I thought, yeah,” Leilani agreed.

“Y’know, I feel like we’ve switched roles here, you’re usually the cautious, common sense one. I’m the one more likely to get a tat in the middle of the night.”

“You’re nursing a broken heart, m’dear. You’re not thinking straight.” 

Jo blinked at her, “True. Ok, let’s go.”

“That’s the spirit!”

They floo-powdered directly into the parlor’s mud/waiting room, the owner left the outer door unlocked to allow a discreet place for wizards to come and go while the inner door was locked with a Diagon Alley-like password that only worked as long as they were open for business. Jo had to admit it was a clever system as Leili tapped out the code and all but dragged her inside.

“Knock-knock!” Leili called. The parlor proper was empty, but the code worked so someone must be there.

“Be there in just a mo’!” a voice called back.

The girls milled around the room, looking at photos of satisfied customers and boards showcasing ready designs.

“Hey, I found your picture!” Jo called over her shoulder.

“Cool!”

The scrape of metal on metal redirected their attention to the now open curtain at the far end of the room. “Welcome to the Oak and Poppy, my name is Katharine, do you have an appointment?”

“Walk-ins, if that’s ok,” Leili offered.

“More than ok, honey, the place is positively _dead_ tonight.” Katharine wore her hair in a tall, 1950’s beehive style and had a peculiar, winding gait. “What’s your pleasure?”

“Bracelet Occamy tattoos,” Jo answered, watching Katherine closely while trying not to stare, a faint hissing seemed to emanate from her direction. “My left wrist, her right.”

“Have either of you had tattoos done before?”

“Yeah.” Jo swept her ponytail to the side to offer Katharine a glimpse of the Thunderbird across her shoulder blades. 

XXX

(This one was supposed to follow Fred and George’s departure from Hogwarts but I realized I didn’t want to post almost a whole chapter straight from the book so I saved this little bit that was kind of an iffy fit anyway.)

Fred spotted Peeves across the hall, “Give her hell from us, Peeves!” he ordered, and Peeves who never took orders from students swept his belled hat off his head and sprang into a salute. The twins wheeled around and sped out the open doors, cacophonic applause following them out. 

As the twins left campus Umbridge spun around and hyper focused on Leilani who was trying not to laugh herself sick. “ _YOU!_ This is all your fault!”

“What? _How?_ If it’s anybody’s fault, I’d expect it to be yours, _Headmistress_ ,” Leilani shot back, still laughing. 

Umbridge’s face was turning a peculiar shade of aubergine with fury; it completely clashed with her Pepto/Barbie pink outfit. “I expect you to accord me some respect, or you’ll find out how very difficult life outside of school can be.”

Leili did her best to sober up, but she couldn’t repress the ear splitting grin as she flagged Jo down and said, “I have a class to get to, _Professor_ ; I wouldn’t want to be late.” Despite herself, she gave a little mocking bow before scampering off to her next class. 

_The halls will be quiet with out Fred and George_ , she thought before another firework exploded down the hall, _but not yet._

_Not yet._


End file.
